Graphic Design for Referendum Campaign

Background:

A referendum was held in Helsingborg about selling the local energy company Helsingborg, Sweden, on Jan 12th 2020. I was part of the steering group for the initiative against selling. Our side won.

What I did:

As well as other campaign activities and strategy discussions I created the graphic design profile, flyers, ads, infographics and more for the people initiative ("No to sales"-side).

Work method:

I created a few examples for double-sided A5 flyers and presented to the steering group. As the target group was “All voters in Helsingborg” the design needed to be clean, easy to read and distinct. It should clearly give the message, but not overwhelm and be too “trendy”. The flyers were reworked according to suggestions from the steering group members until a final look was decided.

As the People Initiative was non-profit and crowdfunded and no money could be spent on additional software or services, the work was done mainly in MS Word with images (copyright free) etc. edited in Photoshop.

This graphical design was then used not only by the Peoples Initiative but was also accepted by the 2 major political parties on the sales opposing side in the work to inform the public about the referendum. The flyers were used throughout the campaign. They were distributed by hand by people roaming the streets, as well as sent out (with slightly changed copytext) to all households in the city. Other flyers and handouts were created using the same idea and graphic style.

Ads

I also created a number of newspaper ads for the initiative. We started with an idea about continuing the fight and created two different ads on that theme.
Headers: "The fight goes on" - "It will be decided at the ballot on January 12th!". Main texts "In one corner - the People of Helsingborg", listing jobs and groups of people. "And in the other corner - The tone deaf!" -"The Leaders of Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna, Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna" - (the political parties wanting to sell).

Meanwhile one of the pro-sales parties switched sides to No and the Initiative decided to go for a less confrontational approach. And while we enjoyed creating the fight ads we had to tone it down. Instead I created a simple ad stating that the referendum was happening and showed both sides. On the “No” side the people of Helsingborg, listing job titles and party members in a long list. On the “Yes” side “the leaders of the x, y z, and xx parties” a very short list. I did this together with one of the steering group members, texting back and forth with ideas and input.

Another ad, full page, was made with a top half with a background image of an electricity windmill in sunset the text states “referendum 12/1 about selling Öresundskraft”, and a lower half stating "Vote on Jan 12th” "You don't need your voting card an ID is enough". Again basically using look and feel from flyers.

A smaller 1/4 page ad was a replica of the posters used in the stores, see below, also based on the flyer design.

All three ads were published in the local free paper distributed to all households during the referendum weekend.

Infographics

I created a couple of Infographics. The first one describing the areas where the energy company is working. The second one is describing the city net (local fibrebroadband network). For this I used a free online infographics tool, Piktochart, which somewhat limited the possibilities for colours, graphics and fonts. These were published on the Initiatives homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

"Vote!" campaign – last week before referendum.

Ads for billboards and digital billboards where created with a simple message “Referendum about selling Öresundskraft, Vote before 12/1”!
Small "neutral” posters where put in store windows and on free poster locations in frequently visited areas of Helsingborg. The text was the same as on the billboards.
After discussions in the steering group it was decided that it would be easier to get permission for the posters if they were just stating "Vote before 12/1” instead of "Vote No before 12/1", so the ballot with the red checkmark was removed. All of the above where based on the design profile.