Run the World Digital

CASE STUDY · POLITICAL CREATIVE

THE SPRINT TO NOVEMBER

A year and a half inside a political ad shop — one designer, a rotating slate of down-ballot and top-of-ticket races, and a fundraising deadline that never moved.

ROLE — GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN

STUDIO — RUN THE WORLD DIGITAL

01 — THE BRIEF

A SHOP BUILT FOR ONE DEADLINE

Run The World Digital builds the ad creative that keeps political campaigns funded and staffed: branding, social ads, and email graphics for candidates running at every level, from city council to Congress.

I worked alongside the Creative Director as one of the shop’s designers, moving between a U.S. House fundraising push, a governor’s race in Maine, and a toss-up in Michigan — sometimes in the same afternoon. Every project had the same constraint: the election date wasn’t moving, so the work had to.

02 — THE AD MACHINE

SAME ASK, NEW CANDIDATE, EVERY WEEK

Most of the paid-social and email work followed one format: an image, a headline built around urgency, and a donate button that had to be found in under a second. What changed was the candidate, the state, and how close the race was.

03 — THE OTHER BRIEF

WHEN THE ASK WASN’T A DONATE BUTTON

Not everything ran toward a deadline. In 2021, I illustrated a set of flat-vector character portraits for RTWD’s social content — pop-culture-inspired pieces made to earn engagement rather than dollars, and a chance to draw rather than template.

04 — THE DAY-TO-DAY

WHAT THE ROLE ACTUALLY HELD

  • Built branding, advertising, and digital campaign assets alongside the Creative Director for candidates running at the local, state, and federal level.

  • Designed static and motion graphics for social media, email marketing, fundraising, and volunteer recruitment across multiple platforms.

  • Supported campaign teams with fast-turnaround creative as election-cycle deadlines compressed.

This is where I learned to design against a clock that doesn’t negotiate — a discipline that still shapes how I scope slower, more deliberate work today.