For my major project I will be working on a design for change campaign that raises awareness of the Green Parties policies and exploring how visuals can influence behaviour and encourage positive action. The next 5 blog posts will be taking you through the development process for the project, this blog post will be focusing on the research phase.
Why
The current division in the United Kingdom has people arguing, even though the core issues are felt by all, wealth is being squeezed out of the working class, and the rich are getting richer. Many political parties are blaming migrants, disabled people or LGBTQIA+ as a distraction. I feel that Green’s policies offer an option that would help everyone and hopefully lead to wealth being distributed back into society. The Greens are ethically, environmentally and economically better than other political parties. I would like to use design to communicate their manifesto clearly to a varied target audience and demonstrate how they plan to tackle the key issues.
Research
To begin I started to analyse the policies of various parties to understand why people voted for the alternative parties and considering how I can connect these to the Green Party manifesto. I also looked at the visual elements created for British campaigns and noticed there was a lack of excitement and a problem with communicating the right messaging. Whilst some of these parties have been successful in getting the vote, they often misguide the public on what they can deliver, and this is why many members of the public have turned their backs on politics and choose to no longer vote.
Figure 1-4 – Various British political campaigns (The Irish Times, 2025) (Institute for Government, 2024) (Liberal Democrats, 2024).
When looking at the above, we currently have reform using wording similar to a problematic “Jim’ll Fix It” style slogan, labour has no strong messaging (which reflects how a large audience views Kier Starmer), conservative are using concise, cold messaging and shapes that resemble missiles and the liberal democrats are trying to take down the conservatives with jokes and gimmicks.
This led me to exploring campaigns in other countries that have been successful. When looking at the visuals that are created for American campaigns it is an entirely different approach to that of British political parties.
Contemporary Examples
I have found inspiration from American style political campaigns. These have a clear visual identity, with strong marketing assets that are shared both digitally and physically through canvassing. I have been exploring examples that could have an influence on my project.
Similarly to the Green Party, the Mamdani campaign was a grass roots campaign that promoted community coming together and tackling wealth inequality. The thoughtfully considered colour palette is inspired by New York bodegas, yellow cabs and hot dog vendors (American Kahani, 2025). In this example each borough of New York is represented through personalised illustrations and choice of typography. This gave me the idea of possibly creating a series of campaign posters personal to each region of the UK that draw inspiration from colours, typography and landmarks of each region.
The above campaign designed by Order design agency is another example of an inspirational campaign. The design is strong, structural and proud. Order designed a typographic identity that was inspired by the history of the area, as shown below.
I would like to ensure that the elements created for my project draw from history of Britain and British culture to show intention in the campaign that contrasts the current designs of British campaign graphics. Additionally, the language used throughout this campaign gives sense of inclusion, to bring people together, not to divide them.
Another example of a strong campaign identity, that communicates clear messaging in a simple way is Michael Bierut and Order’s design assets created for the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. I would like to experiment with designing illustrations that communicate the Green Parties key points.
Moving forward, I would like to take inspiration from the above campaigns to promote bringing communities together and carry forward the playful, bright, approachable feel to the designs for my project. Ekzarkova (2025) made a succinct point about the Mamdani campaign being a user centred approach and through storytelling, empathy and iteration the campaign was successful.
References
American Kahani (2025) The font that rocked the campaign: designer Aneesh Bhoopathy and the visual revolution behind Mamdani’s historic win. https://americankahani.com/business/the-font-that-rocked-the-campaign-designer-aneesh-bhoopathy-and-the-visual-revolution-behind-mamdanis-historic-win/ [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].
Institute for Government (2024) General election 2024: Seven things we learned from the Conservative manifesto. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/general-election-2024-conservative-manifesto [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].
Institute for Government (2024) General election 2024: 10 things we learned from the Labour manifesto. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/general-election-2024-labour-manifesto [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].
Liberal Democrats (2024) Ed Davey’s tory removal service. https://www.libdems.org.uk/news/article/ed-daveys-tory-removal-service [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].
Medium / Ekzarkova, M. (2025) What designers can learn from Zohran Mamdani’s historical campaign. https://uxdesign.cc/what-designers-can-learn-from-zohran-mamdanis-historical-campaign-11f92007e873 [Accessed 28Feb 2026].
Order (2026) James Felton Keith (JFK). https://order.design/project/james-felton-keith-jfk [Accessed 12 Mar 2026].
The Irish Times (2025) Nigel Farage gears up for Reform UK’s ‘big moment’ in May 1st elections. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2025/04/01/nigel-farage-gears-up-for-reform-uks-big-moment-in-may-1st-elections/ [Accessed 16 Mar 2026].