Elizabeth Warren for President
Dream big, fight hard.
It was an honor of a lifetime to fight to elect a candidate I truly believed in. She would save us from dictatorship, then fight for the middle class and start to right the wrongs of structural American failings. I worked with campaign leadership and team leads across design, video, web, social, fundraising, store, comms, events, & organizing to create projects that would educate and inspire.
Team Warren ended it’s run as a final 3 Democratic candidate, but her ideas and staff have a large influence in the Biden administration.
2019-2020
Senior Creative Lead
☑️ In-house
⬛️ AGENCY
⬛️ Freelance
⬛️ Self-Initiated
Design
Art Direction
Web design
Motion design
Video
Photography
Merchandise
Fundraising
Community building
Creative Strategy
Social strategy
Copy writing
Production
Event planning
Plan rollouts
Warren always lead the policy conversation with well researched progressive policies. These plans took full campaign coordination to launch. Often the public only had an idea of the problem at hand, so it was up to the campaign to educate our followers and finish with a solution.
Below is an example of the contented created for a cross-channel plan rollout for the Blue New Deal in just a matter of days. Each policy had their messaging watch outs, target audiences, paid media assets, and bespoke breakthrough creative.
Full explainer animation
By the incredible Laura Porat!
Expert Testimonial Video
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson was an incredible campaign surrogate for our ocean and environmental plans.
Social takeover
Multiple explainer galleries for Instagram, shareable value statements, and a tweet thread of the policy for different learning types.
Social Q&A
We hosted a Q&A on Team Warren’s Instagram where she responded to questions from our supporters. The laymen answers and interactive format created a new understanding to the innovative policy.
Merch: sticker pack!
Environmental activism always has a home on bumper stickers, so we created a set as an affordable way to let our supporters wear their values.
Publishing
Working with comms and policy experts to get the word out in their own voice.
Merchandise
I created the Artiest Series to bring Warren’s values and quotes to life. Every item was created by womxn illustrators across the country and union printed. This program was and an important fundraising mechanism, while simultaneously uplifting the community of supporters.
Each artist drew their own version of the Warren logo to keep texture and style. To launch we’d work with online influencers to get the word out while promoting across social and our email lists.
Artist Series 01
Erin Griffiths
Boston, MA
Our first art print, We Are Women With Warren, was screenprinted by staff and sold out in 3 hours! It was released on August 18th, the 99th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote. The illustration is fully inclusive and acknowledges our evolved view of feminism.
Later the design was made into a shirt, a tote, and reprinted as an art print in other colorways. When released they were number 1, 2, and 5 of the store’s top sales.
Mini documentary about the campaign’s first art print.
Artist Series 02
Jessica Hische
Oakland, CA
We collaborated with 3 incredible hand-letters to create art from Senator Warren speeches.
Artist Series 03
Cymone Wilder
Nashville, TN
We collaborated with 3 incredible hand-letters to create art from Senator Warren speeches.
Artist Series 04
Lauren Hom
Detroit, MI
We collaborated with 3 incredible hand-letters to create art from Senator Warren speeches.
Artist Series 05
Trap Bob
Washington DC
The design originally started as a commission for Giphy but was so beloved it moved to the shop.
Artist Series 06
Alice Lee
San Francisco
Elizabeth is passionate about queer and trans issues so for LGBTQ history month, we released a limited edition shirt that recreates a favorite past time of Elizabeth, the Massachusets pride parade. Built like a tuxedo shirt, it features a rainbow feather boa wrapped around the shoulders.
Artist Series 07
Tracie Ching
Washington DC
With many elements of our campaign’s brand being rooted in The New Deal, we reimagined the classic Roosevelt election poster— honoring the original concept while bringing the design and policy into 2020.
Holiday Cards
The 3-pack designs featured famous slogans, real family photos, and explorations of the brand.
2020 Planner
This item was a no brainier… not easy to get union printed, but we got the job done. A crowd favorite at events and in the store.
SELECT PRESS from the PROJECT
Mashable: After much research, the vote is in and I'm pleased to announce that Elizabeth Warren has been elected President of Merch
LA Times: If the 2020 Democratic nominee for president was picked solely on the strength of campaign merchandise offerings, Warren would win in a landslide
GQ: Perhaps the most relatable slogan on this entire list
VOX: Warren’s swag highlights her competence and the diversity of her base
Esquire: This simple, no-nonsense approach to merch, was a key pillar of the campaign
Teen Vogue: Warren is the only candidate in the race whose wares explicitly invoke women
Web storytelling
Inspired by editorial “scrollytelling” features, our team created two interactive articles— a mix of a video explainer and a medium post.
Ultra Millionaire Tax
The Wealth Tax is one of the core tenants to Senator Warren’s campaign and while many people might have heard the two cent chant, they don’t know how life-changing it will be for every American. It was written for non political folks to understand this big, systemic topic without jargon that makes eyes roll. This experience tells the story of wealth inequality with a particularly game changing data viz section on the wealth gap.
A Elizabeth Biography
Elizabeth’s life hasn’t followed a straight path, but at every turn she was able to fight for opportunity. Her journey laid the foundation for the plans she’s proposing— now, she’s fighting from the heart to make sure everyone gets the same chances she got.
Video projects
I had the opportunity to write scripts, produce, and direct lots of video for the campaign (many of them in other sections on this page). Below is a sample of the work.
The Wealth Gap
We took the data viz interactions from the Ultra Millionaire web explainer and turned it into a video to use on social to help the viewer understand that the wealth they have is nowhere near the realm of the wealthiest people in America.
Washington Square Park Speech in 360°
I worked with the incredible video technologist Sam Baumel (right) to record Warren’s historic NYC speech in 360. Best viewed in an Oculus or google Cardboard.
Giphy Channel
With meme culture going mainstream it’s easy to see the gif is the new campaign button. I was focused on creating and curating the Warren Giphy channel right away. It’s a great opportunity to create the media that will be shared directly by our audience.
Our page was the fastest growing account and set the pace for other candidates. We quickly got to 100m+ views before Super Tuesday. It’s not just funny reactions— it’s media connected to policy for folks to get excited about. We updated during/after Town Halls and debates and have weekly updates to drive traffic and include in larger plan rollouts.
Custom TrapBob GIFs
I commissioned the Giphy queen TrapBob to create 3 illustrated animations for our team and followers to use on Instagram.
Pinky promise
Selfie Line
Plans on plans
“They were comfortable with me doing things in my style. They just wanted to celebrate different things about Warren herself—they wanted to be able to capture her energy … I didn’t necessarily feel I had a place in politics, but design is such a welcoming way to be able to bring in people’s opinions instead of them feeling alienated from the subject. It’s such a great way to educate without telling people what to do.”
FastCo: How the right GIF could transform the 2020 race—and beat Donald Trump
A few favorites from the design team
Photography
Edited Elizabeth’s official campaign portraits
Lots and lots of ecommerce photography for the shop and social
#WearWarren
Created a fundraising moment in November that utilized all of the new merchandise photos modeled by our staff with a full organic social take over. The team each posted their photos and promoted the shop. The @TeamWarren account followed along and uplifted posts across channel through-out the day. It created the best sales day to date and #WearWarren trended on twitter.
Miscellaneous content
Team Warren brand
The official account from the campaign and orgranizing staff. Logo evolved from the “Warren Has A Plan For That” ribbon motif early in the race.
Grassroots Fundraising Wall
Grassroots donors built this movement brick by brick, so we introduced a new way to thank them: our Grassroots Donor Wall at campaign HQ. A physical reminder of how we power this movement.
This was a massively successful idea and lots of fun for the staff to construct (below). Each sticker had the name of 6 donors and together we built the logo.
Building the wall time lapse
The true engineering feat was creating a searchable web version of the wall for donors to find themselves on.
Coloring Pages
When your candidate is championing universal child care, lots of great kiddos show up to the rallies. I worked with the organizing team to create a simple coloring book for all the parents at events. Check them out here →
Iowa Trip RV
Before the Iowa Caucus all the candidates are going all over Iowa giving speeches. Many have big, fancy buses… but the Warren Campaign is more thoughtful. We used a Winnebago, a company based in Iowa, to get around to show love for the all-American business. See her tour here →
E-moji-W
For World Emoji Day on July 17th we created emoji-like illustrations of Senator Warren on our Giphy page for supporters to use across all platforms.
Flat Stanley Visits Elizabeth Warren
The Flat Stanley Project is an educational project designed for elementary school students to promote an interest in learning about different people and places. Who makes up this country and what are they lives like and what are their values?
We received a Flat Stanley from Finnegan in Ohio and since Warren was an educator and cares so deeply about schooling, I took it upon myself to give ol’ Stan the ride of his life. He met the campaign manager, speech writer, creative staff, Bailey the dog, and got to see Elizabeth give a speech in New Hampshire.
The Game Plan
Taking advantage of Instagram Stories multiple choice functionality, I created a weekly fun “quiz” to test our supporters on Warren’s latest plans. And example question would be:
Elizabeth’s wealth tax on the richest 0.1% will pay for:
A) Universal child care
B0 Tuition free public college and technical school
C) Student loan debt cancellation
D) All of the above
Internal Campaign Merch
Sometimes you make things just for fun… to rally the troops. 🤙
The FINAL FACT
There are so many facts… fundraising breakthroughs, policy firsts, locations visited… but I will always remember Warren ending a billionaire’s bid to steal the nomination.
The creative leadership team and Elizabeth.