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Voting Vibes

Semester-long project
September- December 2020

This project was created as part of a Creative Campaigns for Voting course and for the existing Sparkvotes initiative, encouraging on-campus student voting and awareness. This project was in collaboration with fellow design students Jessica Burkle and Juliet Mandell.

For the November 2020 Presidential Election, Sparkvotes partnered with the Ann Arbor City Clerk’s office to create a pop-up of the City Clerk’s office at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) on campus. This space allowed students to conveniently register and vote on campus prior to and on Election Day.

The Project:

Our project centered around making the line wait at UMMA a more interactive experience for voters, to promote and celebrate registration and voting at UMMA. We created a subbrand, within the existing Sparkvotes identity, around our event named “Voting Vibes.” Our intention was to make voting at UMMA seem like an event, to reduce intimidation around voting. 


Photo by Mark Gjukic

Voting Vibes encapsulates many different components:

1. A Silent Disco for voters in line
The Silent Disco emphasizes voting as a form of expression through music. We created postcards to advertise the Silent Disco with a QR code to a curated Spotify playlist, to allow for a safe, socially-distanced environment in the midst of COVID-19. 



2. Instagram Effects
We wanted to continue this idea of keeping the line at UMMA an interactive experience through a photo-op. Our original plan was to create cardboard picture frames for voters to hold up in a socially distanced environment. However, due to a COVID-19 stay-at-home order, we transitioned to a virtual format creating these Instagram effects. Through another QR code on a poster by the exit, voters would be able to scan the QR code and get access to these effects which they could then pose with and post. Due to a timing issue, these actually did not go into effect but were fully designed.




3. Chalking
Using the leftover cardboard from the picture frames, we created stencils for chalking. Using spray chalk, we sprayed voting messaging around campus in high-traffic areas close to UMMA. We hoped this last push for campus messaging would increase voter turnout for the last few days before the end of the election.