Overview
Greg Puckett has served as Mercer County Commissioner since 2015. Although his recent bid for Second VP of the National Association of Counties was unsuccessful, Commissioner Puckett sees himself as a winner. Why? In a news article written post-election, reporter Ben Schwartz quotes Puckett: “Because if you do things with grace and dignity and you move the issues forward as opposed to the politics, that’s where you could be the most successful.”
Jamie Summers-Brown and his Bricks Without Straw team designed Commissioner Puckett’s campaign website and offline materials to highlight his integrity, accomplishments, goals, and the underlying philosophy of strong community leadership that motivated his campaign.
Design and Branding: It’s All About Appeal
If nothing else, campaign materials – online and offline – must appeal to various defined audiences. Campaigns in general are also hectic and require precise, timely messaging that must be distributed on a moment’s notice. Jennifer Piercy, Greg Puckett’s campaign coordinator, was well aware of the skills needed for the website design, message distribution, and overall branding for the campaign. “I knew that Jamie had all the skill sets that we would need to put together Greg’s campaign,” she notes.
Greg had also seen some of Jamie’s website designs and was impressed. “I knew the quality of what I’d seen before would be there,” he says. “I had a feel for what was needed on the website, and we built around that.”
“Appeal” is the fundamental word that guided collaboration on the campaign website and offline materials. “We looked to Jamie for guidance on style and on what would be most appealing visually,” Jennifer comments. “His role was to make sure all the messaging looked appealing.” While she and Greg created specific campaign messaging, Jamie used his expertise to convert that messaging into a website design with visual images that communicated a clean look and a clear message for the public.
Branding, which includes logo design and lots of other details like color and font choices, keeps the messaging consistent and memorable. “I had some ideas, but knew we needed adjustments, and Jamie pitched some designs to us,” Greg recalls. “Whenever I saw something that needed to be changed, he was very helpful to make sure we remained in compliance with our branding.” Jennifer notes, “We relied on Jamie to provide us with a nice, clean look that could be used for several types of materials.”
Offline Design
In addition to converting the campaign message into an appealing design for the campaign website, Jamie designed several offline campaign materials for display and distribution at events.
These materials included an 8’ x 10’ backdrop and all printed materials – signage, rack cards (small promo pieces), and campaign giveaway items (buttons, stickers, pens). “For everything that we put forward for public consumption, our brand was consistent across the board,” says Greg.
The campaign entrusted Jamie and his team with the design and printing of all the campaign’s offline materials.
Immediate Messaging
Social media is undeniably critical in any campaign, and Jamie made sure to include links to social media platforms on the Puckett campaign website. He was also instrumental in distributing immediate messaging in the form of email blasts, which linked to social media.
“Greg and I wrote the email blasts, and Jamie coordinated their distribution with our social media postings,” Jennifer adds.
Impressions and Feedback
Jamie’s design of the Puckett campaign website and associated materials was impressive to Greg, Jennifer, and to the public. “We got a lot of compliments on Jamie’s signage and his visuals; everyone liked the clean layout,” Jennifer comments. “The layout had a good flow to it, so you didn’t have to dig through pages and pages to find information.”
Greg notes some additional positives: “We got our website out very early in the campaign and we received lots of early feedback about the information on the site and the general look and feel – a good vibe and a good flow. It linked to social media, and the website video had a big presence up front.”
As for working with Jamie, Jennifer and Greg have only good things to say. “Jamie was able to pivot a lot if we needed something changed or were under the gun with a deadline. He was able to react, make changes and push out the product,” notes Jennifer.
“Jamie absolutely met my expectations,” adds Greg. I would definitely recommend him. Any branding project can have snags, but this was pretty seamless.”
