Ken Elston for Manassas City Council

I am proud to introduce the launching of Ken Elston’s brand new web site, my first project for a political campaign. Ken is a theater professor at George Mason University and he is running for city council in Manassas.

For his branding and marketing campaign, he recruited Jim Van Meer, a creative services manager at American Petroleum Institute and a current graduate student at Mason. Jim and I met when I started my graduate study. We hit it off well. Jim is my go-to man for print-related questions. We collaborated on school projects, in which he did print work and I did digital part.

So when Jim was tasked with Ken’s logo, print collaterals and a web site, he asked me to work with him on the web component. Even though my schedule was packed, I agreed to do the job for two reasons: To have the opportunity to work Jim and to get into the political market.

As expected, Jim created a simple, elegant logo for Ken. To be consistent with Jim’s work, I had a set of design elements to work with. Jim chose red, white and blue for the obvious reason. For typefaces, he selected Goudy Old Style and Helvetica Neue. I like the combination because it plays on Ken’s message: “Building on our past and planning for our future.”

In the process of designing the web site, I want voters to get two things: the candidate and his stand on issues. For the homepage, I selected a friendly shot of Ken to let voters see right away who he is. I also pushed for a page with issues to let voters understand his position.

For the secondary pages, I used photos of him and his family to give voters a bit of his personal life. The site is powered by WordPress, which also gives Ken the ability to blog. I worked with Ken directly from providing him the design to getting the contents. Through our professional relationship, I have learned that Ken is a team leader who gives and receives thoughtful feedback. I am confident that Ken would be a great city council for Manassas. Vote for him.