Media Advocacy: Feelin’ the Bern in Our Revolution

For my final project in my Political Media & Communications class at The New School, I designed a media advocacy campaign for the “Our Revolution” progressive social movement started by Senator Bernie Sanders. We were given the option to write another essay on a topic of our choice, but I wanted to create something different. I wanted to play around with the idea of what Bernie’s social movement ad campaign might look like if I was hypothetically hired to do the branding. I drew on the knowledge and the creative typography techniques I learned from my Design Principles class when I did a similar media advocacy project for the local school community, reminding them to register and rock the vote on their coffee run, by directing them to go to the Rock the Vote website on their smartphones. The difference was that this time, I was designing ads for “Our Revolution” to be displayed as posters on the MTA subway system.

I drew on the knowledge and the creative typography techniques I learned from my Design Principles class when I did a similar media advocacy project for the local school community, reminding them to register and rock the vote on their coffee run, by directing them to go to the Rock the Vote website on their smartphones. The difference was that this time, I was designing ads for the MTA subway system. To obtain the most accurate dimensions for the subway posters, I researched the measurements and found them on Outfront Media’s New York Production Handbook (page 38 for the urban panel and page 40 for the two-sheet poster). It’s a handy resource to have as a reference for future NYC public transportation advertising campaigns (the MTA bus and subway systems, as well as the MetroNorth commuter rail, are represented in the handbook).

I wanted to expand on the idea of what the revolution actually means, and ultimately what the movement represents, and from there I designed a series of “It’s About _____________” subway advertisements. The idea is to pique people’s interest in the issues that they care about and to get them involved in the political process by prompting them to check out the “Our Revolution” website to find out more information and to research their local candidates.

The following images are from a presentation I gave for the class exploring my media advocacy campaign.