- Under: Inspiration,
12 Most Inspirational Political Websites
This guest post was written by Brian Franklin and Eva Vesper at Web Hosting Search. He occasionally writes for design blogs but also has his own hosting blog, where he writes about hosting, designing, and random potpourri. Web Hosting Search is a respected guide on web hosting providers and helps visitors chose the best hosting for their needs.
As the presidential election goes into its final lap, we decided to search for some of the best designed sites on politics. What surprised us was that many sites had ’shouting messages:’ large fonts, flashy images, and crazy Adsense. Were they no good sites out there that: 1) still get the point across; 2) do it in an aesthetically pleasing manner? Thankfully we were able to find some. We chose these sites not because of the messages (there are sites from all sides of the political spectrum) but rather how successful the designer was at creating a visually stimulating site without going overboard. Here are twelve sites and why we voted for them.
But first, BarackObama.com Vs. JohnMcCain.com
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Before we get into our listing one question had to be answered: Which presidential candidate currently has the best designed website? And since web design transcends all political colors and differences it is with a objective mind we can clearly state that senator Barack Obama’s website is well designed compared to John McCain’s website. Why? Obama takes a warm clean feel to the website; images fade in and out, social media elements are well placed throughout the site, and the site dedicates a large portion to chapters. McCain’s site sadly, lacked both in good coding and design. There were no social media elements to take advantage of the power of the net and the visual design was bland. Brooke Marshall wrote an in-depth article about this. Check it out here.
And so with one day to go until America’s next president is elected, it is time to go political. Listed below are twelve well designed websites in the political niche. The time has come to address perhaps one of the most important topics of society today: web design!
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1. Politico.com
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A clean cut magazine. The layout has clear blue headers to form the political headlines of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Perhaps in another niche this web design would come off as plain and simple. At Politico.com however the content can reach the reader instantly through its headers, creating a professional and intriguing look.
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2. DeclareYourself.com
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A modern looking website that through a fresh and young web design takes on the issue of the relatively low voting rate amongst Americans. Declare Yourself has unlike other websites, understood the importance of presentation.
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3. JohnMcCainRecord.com
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McCain’s silhouette profile in the background and brightly colored headers in large letters makes this site stand out. The web design grabs you like a frontpage headline in a tabloid magazine.
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4. FightTheSmears.com
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Like most political websites, the color blue creates a patriotic and soothing mood. With good structure, easy navigation, and professional graphic elements, there was no doubt this site would make this list.
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5. NRSC.org
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Looking at the web design, The National Republican Senatorial Committee has a fabulous website. The header and navigation menu is separated from the body and that gives a sense of structure. The four featured boxes on the front page adds a clear structure and user-friendly presentation of the content. The video streamer in the main box gives the site a dynamic feeling. And irritating but still well done is the thick-box on the homepage. I’m not a fan of them since so many sites misuse them but this one grabs my attention and there is an immediate call to action.
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6. Democrats.org/blog
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The navigation menu is bold, and the blog header is a playful grassy image. With the three colors of the American flag, this web site shows of thought through web design.
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7. NoHussein.org
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Perhaps the only fully flash designed website, No Hussein has a
simple color scheme (black, orange, and grey), uses clever photos of Obama’s portrait and profile images, and has bold text to get the point across.
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8. RockTheVote.com
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A thoroughly designed website with impressive banners, icons and overall feel. RockYourVote gives the ‘rock’ feeling: utilizing the title name with also the style (something we haven’t seen in most political sites).
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9. NoVoteLeftBehind.net
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Creativity and the ambition stands out at No Vote Left Behind. They designed the website in a style that mixes a traditional red, white, and blue color scheme, unique graphics in logo and links with a simplicity of the content.
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10. GOP.org
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The Republican National Committee website is content-wise, a bit clustered. However, design wise it shows great depth with discrete yet nice header elements and a structure that puts focus on the intriguing slide show images on the front page.
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11. Equality California
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If you are going to design a website for an explosive issue, such as gay marriage, be smart and design the site to be friendly. EQ CA does just that. Upon first glance, it looks like a Scandinavian design furniture site. Nice sidebar with small logos, clear headings, and warm color choices. Our only problem: some terrible .ASP coding that makes it hard to click on the EQCA icon and actually get to the homepage.
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12. Iprotectmarriage.com
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And on the other side of the same issue, I Protect Marriage has a bold layout. Black background with pink trim, smart icons (the 8 made of two wedding bands), and even funky font in the quiz. The site sends a clear message without using harsh language that many other political sites use. The layout invites the reader to peruse the website without confusion, a great element to keep the reader on board.
If you get hired as a web designer for a political site, remember three things:
1) Design the site to welcome both sides (or all sides) of the issue
2) Use non threatening colors and writing to attract visitors (if your client disagrees, maybe explain that flaming messages won’t attract any visitors… except the nuttiest)
3) And know the type of visitors expected to come to the site. If you are designing a site for a working class city councilman, make the site simple in structure and visual, maybe go patriotic.
And lastly…get your vote out Tuesday.
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Obama’s site is superior than McCain’s site because of branding. It’s consistent. I wrote site review for both candidates’ sites if anyone’s interested
http://www.8164.org/presidential-design/ Obama
http://www.8164.org/presidential-design-part2/ McCain
Nice findings, there are some I didn’t know about.
Thank you for letting us post! One site that could also be included (but I didn’t want to make it 13 sites) was Indecision2008.com. Also very well designed.
Thanks you very much. Great list for me
Keep up the good work !
The first one - obama website is the most amazing and really good redesign.. btw great article!
2 more inspiring community pull-together and vote sites for Obama:
http://obamabaton.com
http://yeswecarve.com
Another new one is http://www.vonation.com. Its more of a forum for political discussion and ideas than a launchpad for one specific point of view.
Great article and wonderful links. I think you forgot one site though - Political Disgust is a great political site with a big daily readership! httt://www.politicaldisgust.com
Kudos to a beautiful roundup. I checked out the RNC’s website and was a little taken aback by some of the design elements that they’ve borrowed from Obama’s campaign, but I suppose a Republican can be inspired by a Democrat every now and again.
Also, I wanted to give you a special thank you for a political design-related post that wasn’t wholly infused with your own personal beliefs. Objective writing is tough, and somewhat of a gift. Very nice work.
Obama’s site is definitely the better of the two… McCain’s is too busy, well from my point-of-view, there’s simply too much activity. If I were to land on that website I’d probably stick around for about 4 seconds, trying to figure out what it was he wanted me to do, and then I’d go look somewhere else for information
Obama’s site is best but http://nohussein.org/ was pretty cool.
I’ve always thought Obama’s site looked better than McCains. I’m glad you brought it up though. Dugg!
I think Obama’s website is the best but I am prone to like anything Obama better than anything McCain so my vote shouldn’t be counted.
Rachel
AllGraphicDesign.com
Nov 1st featuring sarah palin!!!! lol that reads like a tabloid or something
Nice list. As a web designer I may be a tough critic, but I only really liked about half of these. However, that 50% was pretty inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing!
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Excellent list. Even as a frequent user of reddit and digg, I haven’t come across most of these… If only I had found this when you first published it… I’m always just a little bit too late. I’m going to be sure to do a blog post about this a little later. I’ll get back to you when its complete.
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