Be Change. Vote.

After the 2016 presidential election, Jahnavi Rao’s high school peers were extremely vocal with their opinions. But perhaps even more surprising than the election’s outcome, Jahnavi learned that most of those very vocal peers hadn’t even actually voted. She set out to change that. At New Voters, the mission is to amplify every voice. Our mission was to amplify theirs. We are proud to work with New Voters, and we look forward to seeing, feeling, and experience the real change they are creating, every day, for generations to come.

She founded New Voters as a high school club in 2016 on a mission to get young people registered, so that their voices could be heard. With voter registration and the impending 2020 election only a few months away, we are tasked with helping New Voters hit their goal of representation in all 50 states and registering 100,000 young people to vote.

Our goal at heavy was to create a visual system and communication construct that would amplify the New Voters mission and engage even more young people to register. We decided early on that when you vote, you have the opportunity to symbolically become your reasons for voting. Whether it’s hope, or change, or progress, when you cast your ballot, those passions become real. The Be A Voter system communicates those ideas. We used bright colors and big, emotive type to make larger than life statements using very few words. The unique illustrations we created added a lively accent to the pieces. Not only are they stylistically own able for New Voters but their bold nature reflects the accessible, playful voice of online youth activism. They’re rendered minimally with geometric shapes and flat color to mirror the copy’s bold direction. These different elements working together create a vibrant visual language that drives viewers to action, spurring them to be part of a larger movement.

Voting isn’t just an action. It’s not just a thing we do. It’s a thing we are. It’s very personal. We all vote for different reasons. And when we vote, we embody those reasons, those things that mean so much to us, we have the chance to be part of them coming to life, and becoming reality. What becomes of our vote is what becomes of us all. This is our chance to Be A Voter.

Who you vote for is an expression of yourself. But voting in general is an expression fo solidarity. That is exactly why New Voters was encouraging those who were doing it first as a privilege worth celebrating. Through buttons, t-shirts, posters, and hats reaching gen-z can takes a different type of messaging and motivation. Instead of just putting your name on a list, we wanted to out fit entire college campuses with fresh gear that would keep the conversation spreading.

Reaching the next generation of voters takes targeted and smart content that starts a conversation and keeps the dialogue rolling meeting students right where they are at. Social was where we built our campaign around, building a targeted approach to continue motivating students to register and encourage their friends to do the same. Once on board we used this platform to continue to educate students about candidates on each side of the aisle.

Youth voter turnout increased from 46% in 2016 to 55% in 2020, an almost 10% increase overall. In battleground states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina the youth vote made up between 14-17%. And in the heavily contested state of Georgia, the youth vote comprised almost a quarter of all votes. There is a lot of work to do before the next election cycle, but New Voters is well on their way to making a huge impact on the youth vote.