Democratic Talent Pool brand refresh
Background Zinc Labs' Democratic Talent Pool helps connect talented campaign workers with the campaigns who need them, providing hiring managers with curated lists of resumes.
The brief In the summer of 2024, Zinc Labs needed to reach out to campaign staffers, to get them to join the Pool before their positions ended after Election Day.
Ahead of that signup campaign, I helped them refresh the Democratic Talent Pool brand with new digital assets including:
- custom animated icons
- impact infographic
- animated calls-to-action for social
- testimonial templates for the social media campaign
The process
Three animated icons expanding on the existing Democratic Talent Pool brand: a bolt to illustrate how the Pool powers careers and campaigns, a fist bump to illustrate collaboration and connection, and a ribbon to illustrate vetted, curated resumes. (There is no audio in the videos on this page.)
The Democratic Talent Pool brand didn't need a complete do-over, only a few additional assets to help it stand apart in the signup campaign and provide the Zinc team with flexibility to communicate about the Pool in a variety of media.
Those additional assets included the images and icons you see below, as well as a new badge logo and an animated wave shape — a subtle, flexible nod to the idea of "pool" that could be used for image backgrounds, email headers (above), and the Pool landing page Zinc created in Hubspot.
The icon pack
All 12 icons I created for the Democratic Talent Pool. Some, like the bolt, battery, and fist bump, were designed for general use anywhere we'd need a bullet point, focal point, or extra design element. Others had much more specific uses in mind, like the phone, pin, and resume upload icons, which fulfilled needs at different steps in the intake process.
The impact infographic
The best way to see some of the brand elements in action: this infographic I made detailing key numbers from the Democratic Talent Pool's most recent cycle. (Click image to view full-size.)
Animated calls-to-action
These are three of the calls-to-action I created for the social media campaign, built out from existing taglines and the new brand imagery I'd developed. These three were sized for Twitter and email, and I also created files optimized for LinkedIn and Instagram.
Testimonial templates
Another key part of the social campaign: social proof and endorsements. I created a few flexible templates for testimonials that the Zinc team can continue to refresh for future cycles.
What's in a refresh?
Brand refreshes can spring from a lot of different causes. In this case, Zinc Labs and the Democratic Talent Pool had an upcoming campaign they knew would need additional, flexible assets to bring to life.
When you find you no longer have the right tools to communicate about your brand in the way you want, that's a sign it's time to consider a brand refresh.
In my experience, that kind of realization happens months to a year after a full rebranding process, and can look like:
- a slide deck template that doesn't work with the kinds of presentation your team is making
- web pages that need new types of imagery not covered in your brand guidelines
- social images that are stale, repetitive, and not as flexible as your content requires
If that sounds like something you'd like help thinking through, send me an email and let's talk.