2020 Census
City of Grand Rapids
Client
City of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Year
2019-2021
Be Counted Grand Rapids was a multi-year communications campaign designed to maximize census participation across one of Michigan's most diverse cities. As Communications Assistant with the City of Grand Rapids, I built a brand identity based on the City’s census logo, driving the visual strategy through three distinct campaign phases: Education, Awareness, and Encouragement. The campaign had to reach multiple language communities, combat misinformation, and ultimately pivot mid-stream when COVID-19 extended the census deadline and eliminated in-person touchpoints.
My Role: I designed many of the City’s communication materials for the census, including multi-lingual social media posts, handouts, posters, and communications across every phase. The city partnered with a local agency to support the last leg of communications, and I created a number of additional touchpoints to extend the campaign across new digital touchpoints as our strategy shifted in response to the pandemic.
Education, Awareness, & Encouragement
The campaign required a visual system that could flex across an enormous range of applications and audiences. I started by developing a brand identity for dozens of Official Census Assistance Centers—community locations where residents could get help completing the census.
From there, I designed multilingual handouts and mailers explaining what the census was and dispelling fears around the rumored citizenship question. I created social media content, email headers, banners, yard signs, maps, and wayfinding materials that helped people locate assistance centers.
Communicating the Count
The campaign needed to work across multiple languages and cultural contexts while remaining clear and accessible. We had to educate people about an abstract civic process, make them aware of its importance to their daily lives, and ultimately encourage them to take action. The multilingual materials and the diversity of our communication channels helped reach communities that historically go undercounted. The sustained digital presence and direct mail communications kept the census top of mind during months when traditional outreach wasn't possible.
