The Washington Bus

This was project involved a complete redesign for the visual design system for the Washington Bus, an organization based in Washington state working to engage young people to vote and to be involved with politics and social activism. This project involved developing a brand identity, logo, typography, and mobile interface for the Washington Bus and compiling of all these elements into a brand book.

The purpose and mission of the Washington Bus is to encourage this generation to vote and foster leadership qualities in young people. They want to give young people the necessary tools and civic education to become community leaders. They focus primarily on getting young people who come from underrepresented communities involved with political activism. They also want to work towards making Washington State’s politics more accessible to everybody and to normalize civic and political engagement.

In my initial sketches, I tried both typeface logos as well as trying to include some kind of Bus element in the redesigned logo so that it would more clearly communicate the Washington Bus' identity as an organization that travels all across the state on a bus . In my latter sketches I also experimented with incorporating red and blue into the logo. I felt that incorporating this color scheme would really connect the Washington Bus back to its mission of social activism and voter engagement.

Using inspiration from my initial sketches  I made several iterations of the logo on Figma. I experimented with several different Bus designs, different font weights, as well as different shades of red and blue. I decided to keep the Bus in my final design on the final design because I felt that the shape of the bus was modern and sleek helping the the Washington Bus' brand appeal to its target audience of younger people.

The Montserrat in all capital letters gives a structured and professional feel which help tie into the idea of politics and civic engagement. Montserrat has a clean and modern feel helping it appeal to a modern audience. It's shapes are comprised of strong geometric shapes contributing to a sense of order and structure which not only makes it easier to read but also ties back to theme politics. Open Sans provides a clear and legible typeface for paragraph text. It has open letter forms and ample spacing making it easily readable even at smaller font sizes

The Color Palette is based on the colors of the American Flag, helping to ground the brand of the Washington Bus to the idea of  American politics and social justice. The blue represents the American virtues of virtues, perseverance, and justice. The red calls back to American values of courage and sacrifice. The white symbolizes the American ideals of liberty and equality. The use of these classic American colors in the visual design system helps the Washington Bus become more clearly connected to American politics.

The revised mobile interface  for the Washington Bus website puts all of the previous steps into action! It features the redesigned typography and color palette. It also features the redesigned logo without text in the top left corner of the screen  The new visual design system was applied to the Washington Bus’ Home, Who We Are, What We Do, Blog, and Contact pages.