A healthy and sustainable future ... a cleaner planet ... sensible leaders and good ideas ... community involvement ... education, a minimum wage increase, alternative energy, women and entrepreneurs ... initiatives that benefit other people ... post-secondary education, GMO labeling, marijuana decriminalization, equality ... the politicians that'll represent our best interest, because I'm tired of the ones that won’t ... things that matter ... all the voters everywhere ... and the list goes on.
Three powerful, little words
The “I Voted Today” project is an Action Backed collaboration. We brought in Uphill Downhill to do the animation and have been sharing far and wide to get people excited about voting in the upcoming midterms. We just published the story behind the project on Medium.
Philosophically, with our design and development work, we want to move forward issues and causes important to the world changes out there. We want to create small, design-centric projects that are engaging and concise. No bloated features that are hardly ever used. No forced conformity. No huge amounts of text, text and more text. No “old Internet” distraction, clutter or unrelated sliding messages.
We believe in focused design, beautiful content, fast performance and connected experiences meant to build momentum. This was the driving force behind the creation of “I Voted Today.” After launch, we can confidently say this project represents those views. Now let’s break things down.
Now on Shopify
It’s safe to say we have big plans for Action Backed. Where it’s going and what it could become. One small piece of its offering, aside from client work and collaborative projects, is a set of designed products. Tight and focused, from shirts to prints. We assume it will grow in the months to come, but for now it’s solely a home for “I Voted Today” swag. Stickers, buttons, Ts, voting kits and yard signs for sponsors. All run on Shopify, which is really an amazing tool. Head on over and get ready for election day.
The art of tumbling your way to the polls.
Action Backed worked with Yosi Sergant and the TaskForce team on an updated site design for the #GoVote project for 2014
When you first land on the site, the art hits you. A beautiful, full-width image not only sets the tone but can be easily swapped out to keep the site feeling fresh. We launched with Lisa Congdon’s colorful triangles as they capture a certain feeling at the heart of the project. There’s a beauty to the #GoVote message that transcends a typical piece of voting communication. DIY lettering for the roll-up-your-sleeves nature of participatory democracy. A vibrant patchwork for the multicultural, full color worldview of America. From there, three columns of cascading visuals take you down the page.
I Voted Today
With each vote we take, we show our friends, our community and the world what we care about. We vote every day. With our dollars, our clicks and our voices. And come election day, we hit the polls.
I’m very excited to announce the launch of a new collaboration. Cody Peterson and myself have teamed up to create a new Action Backed project—a modernized take on an American democracy classic. We’ve invested our time and dollars in the campaign design, website, application and a variety of swag to get people excited about voting this November. We also worked with Caleb and Daphne from Uphill Downhill on an animation, which is the piece we’re most proud of. They’ve been wonderful partners and went way above and beyond to deliver one hell of a video.
To help us spread the word, please visit I Voted Today.
We give a damn about land, water, clean energy and strong communities.
Action Backed just wrapped up three projects for New Energy Voter, an effort to get out the environmental, progressive vote in Nebraska.
The other key component of the vision for New Energy Voter is supporting young people who decide to take the plunge and run for local office. If you’re passionate about working together with people to make things happen on the ground where you live, why not run for school board, city council or a public power district? It certainly is tough work, and it’s not for everybody. But to move the needle politically, hard-working candidates with principles are definitely needed.
Economist, Teacher, Researcher, Author
Gernot Wagner is a lead senior economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, adjunct faculty at Columbia, research associate at Harvard’s Kennedy School and author of But Will the Planet Notice? We designed and developed the new website for his writing in anticipation of his next book Climate Shock, which he co-authored with Martin Weitzman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
