Case Study: The Power of the Black Vote — Imperatives for 2020

Client: The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. (Sacramento, Silicon Valley, Oakland, San Francisco, Orange County, and Los Angeles Chapters) × NAACP Sacramento Branch Unit 1060 × Women in NAACP (WIN) Sacramento Branch

Location: Sacramento, CA (virtual town hall)Role: Creative Director and Designer Category: Advocacy Campaign / Civic EngagementLaunch: October 2020

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The Brief

Six NCBW chapters and two NAACP entities needed one town hall to carry all of their names without any single one disappearing into the others. Three weeks out from an election that had already broken every turnout model anyone trusted, the ask was simple to state and hard to execute: make the power of the Black vote feel urgent, not lecture-y, and make it look like eight organizations actually agreed on something.

The Work

I built the full visual identity for "The Power of the Black Vote: Imperatives for 2020," including:

• A red, white, and blue system anchored by a diagonal color-block background, built to hold gravity without tipping into campaign-ad cliché

• Individual speaker cards for a roster spanning a sitting US Congresswoman, three California Assembly Members, a retired State Senator, a Mayor Pro Tem, an Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, a filmmaker-activist, and a broadcast news anchor, each card carrying the same disciplined hierarchy regardless of the size of the title

• A dual-partner card format pairing NCBW and NAACP chapter leadership side by side, Dr. Elizabeth Sherrell-Davis with Betty Williams, Carolyn Mullins with Velma Sykes, so local chapter presidents got the same visual weight as elected officials

• A standalone NCBW Town Hall seal and closing graphic to bookend the series

• Consistent partner architecture across every asset: The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. and its six participating chapters, NAACP Sacramento Branch Unit 1060, and Women in NAACP (WIN) Sacramento Branch, credited in full, every time

The Translation

An MBA will tell you that co-branded events run on a locked partner hierarchy. What it won't tell you is how many organizations that hierarchy has to survive when six chapters and two national bodies are all sending you last-minute headshots forty-eight hours before the deadline.

The Outcome

A thirteen-card system that let a sitting Congresswoman and a chapter's Public Policy Chair occupy the same visual authority, because the vote doesn't care about titles and neither did the design. The town hall carried six NCBW chapters and two NAACP entities into one unified push, three weeks ahead of a presidential election, without a single partner getting buried in someone else's logo lockup.

Case study prepared by Delanie West, MBA — Founding Principal, Be Super Creative