CNN 2024 Politics

Our initial design directions explored very clean looks— we leaned into whites with accents of red and blue and played around with different graphic pops to accentuate punchy moments on-screen.

We played around with a lot of textures and linear graphics - exploring cut-outs, shadows and visual references that would influence the final look and feel we landed on with our client.

We designed a robust package that delivered in three phases: Primaries, Conventions and General. For the Primaries, we stayed fairly graphic and then evolved the look of the edit for the Conventions by peppering in locations.

A lot of changes have already occurred over the course of the election and we still have a few weeks before the General Election. We designed the package to have a lot of flexibility within the toolkit buildout to give our partners a chance to pivot when necessary, something that is critical in order to keep up with the pace of politics.

Our on-screen graphics were rendered in 3D, creating a deceptively simple format that actually has a high-end production value with a lot of subtle shifts, hints of shadow and light reflections that elevate the package to a premium level.

The Styleguide we delivered offered solutions for these types of challenges and anticipated graphic responses that could be managed by the team at CNN. Each section of our package had specific references in the toolkit in order to ensure a seamless transition.

The conventions are the occasion established for the formal presidential nominating process for each party. These conventions are very location specific, so we started peppering in location imagery and stylized photography for this portion of the design package. A lot of this imagery still feels really graphic and fits in with the rest of the toolkit but is actually photography.

We originally established this photographic style during our work on the midterms we’d done with CNN prior to this. Bold, clean typography with clear messaging creates a graphic system that works across a variety of platforms.

As part of the toolkit, we supplied our partners at CNN with a multitude of deliverables to use during the debates. We rendered out assets to use as actual prints at the event in addition to cross platform designs— digital, on-air gizmos, lower thirds, snipes all the way to full screen messaging and banners. This included a lot of deliverables for mobile and social media, too.

A major reference for the design work we did for the General election package stemmed from what we did for the linear package. A lot of white backgrounds and black tones were infused into the graphics and then we added a system that could incorporate visual diversity.

The toolkit enables breaks and differentiates the ads that will inevitably run concurrently as election coverage ramps up. The opposition of architectural backgrounds and stylized background photography creates a nice visual juxtaposition to facilitate the rapid delivery of information the network needed.

Our 360 campaign deliverables included assets for the MAX platform, linear, digital, print and Out of Home.