This contest will be Republicans (represented by right-wing PACs) vs Democrats (represented by left-wing PACs). Good luck!

On the Right:

SarahPAC

The website layout for SarahPAC, October 2010.

Featuring not much except some about information, FAQs, and contact information, Palin’s site is rather shallow (hehe). On the plus side, the layout is clean, and the photo of Palin slightly breaks the grid, adding a bit of visual interest and drawing the eye to look at her confident, friendly pose. The email sign up box and buttons are slick, though the button gradients are a bit rigid. The brown texture in the body background is too Photoshoppy, I would recommend using an actual scanned texture instead.

Typography: 4/10
Composition: 5.5/10
Depth of Content: 2/10
Buttons and Banners: 6/10

Total: 17.5/40

Republican Main Street Partnership PAC

The Republican Main Street Partnership PAC, October 2010

Pretty much everything that can go wrong in a design has gone wrong here: Early 1990′s design and typography, a super-saturated color scheme, double hyphens instead of em dashes, bright yellow highlighted calls to action, nasty type beveling and drop shadows, huge paragraph indents (combined with extra line spaces), and more.

Typography: 1/10
Composition: 1/10
Depth of Content: 4/10
Buttons and Banners: 1/10

Total: 7/40

Move America Forward

Move America Forward, October 2010

The martial theme here is too heavy handed: Even if the organization has a Soldier-Centered approach, we want the audience to visualize supporting the troops’ life, interests, health and well being, not think that they’re donating money to buy machine-guns and artillery shells. The large, embedded Facebook widget is always a no-no, the mini-banners in the sidebar are all different styles, making the page feel like it is covered with advertising. The 9/11 banner at the top features weak type and illustration, and the white glow on the outside of the content box is way too heavy-handed. The Twitter feed on the left sidebar is too thin on the column-width, rendering the text unreadable. Also, the header and branding is turning into a graphic stew. Depth of content, featuring lots of sections, the (poorly implemented) Facebook and Twitter information, etc, is good.

Typography: 3/10
Composition: 4/10
Depth of Content: 7/10
Buttons and Banners: 4/10

Total: 18/40

Huck PAC

HuckPAC, October 2010

Ahhh Mr. Huckabee, you never cease to surprise us: This is today’s first passing design! The Kevin Spacey doppelganger has a weak, rushed logo, but the “Contribute” drop down gray box breaks the grid nicely, calling an appropriate amount of attention to itself and giving the right side of the header some actual content. The main navigation buttons look decent, and have a nice effect on rollover. The Featured Item banner features clean typography, information graphics, and photography, and the social media buttons are large, trendy, and gray (converting them to gray means their varied color schemes don’t compete with the site’s overall design).

Typography: 8.25/10
Composition: 8.75/10
Depth of Content: 7/10
Buttons and Banners: 8.5/10

Total: 32.5/40

CPAC

CPAC, October 2010

Conservative.org’s CPAC section is mixed. The large constitution image as the body background has a cool look to it, though it starts to busy the design too much, calling attention away from the content area. Lowering the opacity on that significantly would probably help. The logo is clean, though un-concepted, and the navigation buttons, though minimal, aren’t working. Despite these issues, the overall skin feels relatively clean, especially compared to some of the other examples here. However, once we get into the content area, everything falls apart: centered type blocks, overuse of italics, HTML default blue links with underlines, pixelated social media icons with awkward spacing, a messy banner, blue ribbons made to look 3D when nothing else on the page implies dimension and lots and lots of underlining.

Typography: 2/10
Composition: 3/10
Depth of Content: 5/10
Buttons and Banners: 1/10

Total: 11/40

On the Left:

ActBlue

ActBlue, October 2010

ActBlue acted very blue on this layout… Way too blue. The main content background blue is way too saturated for comfortable reading, and has a variety of blue text shades on top of it. Icons are in different shades of blue also. The main navigation buttons are undesigned and underlined, the important numbers, pull quotes and calls to action are placed seemingly at random with no attention paid to typography. Typos, like not capitalizing words at the beginnings of article titles, are very distracting. Awkward background texture (tight horizontal lines).

Typography: 2/10
Composition: 2/10
Depth of Content: 4/10
Buttons and Banners: 1/10

Total: 9/40

Democratic Advancement PAC

Democratic Advancement PAC, October 2010

Featuring this contest’s most awkward header font/logo (see how it absolutely falls apart when PAC is capitalized?) and an almost-literal mile of text content, DAPAC’s site is simple but uninviting. The text column is way too wide for comfortable reading, and, like I said, really, really long, with no graphics, icons or any other feature to break it up. I would be surprised if anyone has ever read this column of text from start to finish (the page is too long to include on this site, if you want to see it in all its glory, go to their page).

Typography: 1/10
Composition: 1/10
Depth of Content: 5/10
Buttons and Banners: 1/10

Total: 8/40

HillPAC

HillPAC, October 2010

It appears Hillary’s designers got started on the right path, but this website never fully materialized. Maybe because there’s an issue with money (the site simply asks you to contribute to her leftover presidential campaign debt, which I would hardly call a PAC)?

Typography: 5/10
Composition: 6/10
Depth of Content: 0/10
Buttons and Banners: 4/10

Total: 15/40

MoveOn.org

MoveOn, October 2010

With all their celebrity endorsements, and their front and center role in the new American culture war, I assumed MoveOn would have a slick, badda-bing-badda-boom website, but no dice. It isn’t horrible, but there are lots of areas that need attention. To get started: A larger header with much more to contrast it from the content area, a logo (instead of just blue, italic sans-serif) and strong, elegant typography in the content area and sidebar.

Typography: 3/10
Composition: 3.5/10
Depth of Content: 7/10
Buttons and Banners: 4/10

Total: 17.5/40

Results!

Republicans: 86/200 or 43% of the vote.
Democrats: 49.5/160 or 30.93% of the vote.

Overall winner (and this was a pretty easy call): Mike Huckabee.

I’m really surprised, given Obama’s incredible web campaign and gorgeous sites, that so many other Democratic groups have marginalized or ignored good design. Obviously, the Republicans have too in most cases, and may have even lost if: 1)  Huckabee hadn’t come through with a moderately good site, and 2) MoveOn put some of that money into building a site that would encourage sharing, viral messages, and return visitors.

And that truly is the lesson to be learned here: When you show visitors that your house is in order, that you can present a good public face, you can make your information easy to navigate, accessible and pleasurable (not painful!) to view, you show them that you know how to spend the money that they’re giving you. Not only that, but they are encouraged to return, encouraged to show others the site and are better able to spread your message since they spend more time absorbing it.

See any design pointers, or know of other PAC sites I missed that could’ve swayed this election? Let me know!

We all have favorite album covers. Sometimes, this affection leads us to look at the full range of design that composes a recording artist’s “brand.” Whenever I see interesting music design, I am always most interested in what that designer is doing when they aren’t working for a client. Almost all music designers have an expansive collection of fine art which is often just as interesting as what they are doing for bands. This is natural, because music graphics are a very equal blend of functional design with conceptual art.

In this gallery, it should be noted that some of these designers, such as Shepard Fairey and Idris Khan, are known primarily as artists, not graphic designers. But again, the line between the two in this industry is very fine.

Rob Sheridan, Nine Inch Nails
www.rob-sheridan.com

Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth

Headache

We Could Build a Better Robot, If We Only Had Arms

Eduardo Recife, Panic! at the Disco
www.misprintedtype.com
www.eduardorecife.com

Panic! at the Disco T-Shirt

The Truth

The Art of Losing

Lost Paradise

New Heights by Eduardo Recife

Shepard Fairey, Smashing Pumpkins
www.obeygiant.com

Smashing Pumpkins, Zeitgeist

Mujer Fatal Mural

No, I’m Vegetarian

Duality of Humanity

Big Brother City

Stanley Donwood, Radiohead
www.slowlydownward.com

In Rainbows

Amnesiac

United States

Residential Nemesis

Meteor Oligarchy

Glass House Disaster

Idris Khan, Editors

An End Has a Start

every…Page of the Holy Koran

every…Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholders

every…William Turner Postcard from Tate Britain

Note:
Obviously, this is just scratching the surface of the vast pool of music designers out there creating great fine art. However, putting together a gallery like this takes a great deal of time. I plan on revisiting the subject again, and recommendations are welcome.