here are few projects bigger than this one. Your customer? Every American. Your goal? To help shape the world’s oldest and most successful democracy for the better. You will work seven days a week, and there’s a 50/50 chance your project will be totally irrelevant when it’s over. Your pay is certainly less than you’re making now. But, on the flip side, there’s also a chance your work is adopted by the world’s most recognizable and influential executive. The brief is to be a designer for a presidential candidate in the United States of America.There are few people alive that know what this challenge is like in the age of the internet. Josh Higgins is one of those people.
A former musician who played gigs at places like the Vans Warped Tour, Higgins built his design chops creating concert posters. His love of poster design eventually led him to create posters to raise money for Haiti Earthquake relief and Hurricane Katrina victims, as well as a poster for then-candidate Obama’s 2008 campaign (that was purchased by Oprah Winfrey). Later, he was tapped by President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012 as design director.
As the U.S. lurches toward the 2020 election, what passes for “normal” campaign design is changing rapidly. The most iconic campaign imagery of 2016 was a red hat. Designing for politics has never been more complicated. So as the U.S. heads to another highly-charged election, what role will digital product design play? And would you join a campaign if you could?
We asked Higgins to reflect on design’s role in politics and to share some lessons from his career.
