I looked at so many political websites this voting season and most felt like cookie-cutter templated websites. Which is fine since they’re basically information dumps. But Teressa Raiford’s website felt like it had a strong visual identity all its own. It’s an interesting design and not just an information dump.
Definitely got me thinking about ways to push my design in new ways… I would never have thought to put a marquee on a website today but I feel like it works well on her website. And those flat components feel so extremely flat.
I was looking through these inspiration threads and saw very few featuring websites. Figured this might be a nice addition .
Please please don’t use that website as a benchmark. It it typographically hideous and is like a flashback to the internet 25 years ago. Aesthetically, a truly terrible site – unless the ‘designer’ is being ironic a retro!
You are right about cookie-cutter sites. It’s not confined to political sites. Most websites see. use templates (don’t get me started), especially the self-builds. A website is like any other design discipline. You have to determine your audience and communicate in a tone of voice they will respond to.
Look at the best in website design, not just in the political area. It’s quite a profound subject. The more toy dig, the more there is to know. One thing it is not is about making something look pretty. Of course it has to look aesthetically pleasing, but fundamentally it is about communication and saying the right things to the right people.
The design makes me think of zines, as well as reminding me of personal sites on places like MySpace, geocities, neopets, etc (places where random people put together websites). It has the feel of a non-tech person throwing this together. But it’s clear that this is a fairly polished site when I look at the details, so I think this feeling was designed for.
Assuming it’s a purposeful recreation of a bad 1990’s website, I suppose its creator succeeded. Why that person would want the site to look like this, I have no idea.
If this candidate was even semi-serious about getting votes or attracting broad positive attention to herself or her cause (and I assume she was), building a website that’s a throwback, retro art project hardly seems like the way to go about it. Then again, I won’t pretend to understand what takes place in Portland.
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. And the old-web-feel has gotta be intentional, no way they’d use a marquee accidentally.