Women Can Win
Shedding light on the ongoing efforts to ensure women have an equal voice in government leadership
Team
Periscopic
Year
2020, 2024
My Role
Concepting, Information Architecture, Design Strategy, Visual Design
Project
Motivated by the historic milestone that marked the beginning of women’s political inclusion, this project aimed to inform the public about the current state of women’s representation in Congress, promote women’s leadership, and encourage voter participation. The deliverables included an article and a series of data visualizations that illustrate women’s presence in Congress, highlighting their representation by state, racial and ethnic diversity, and party affiliation. We updated and expanded the project in 2024 to compare representation progress and explore where women are running for congressional positions in the 2024 election. Read the full article here.
My Contributions
As one of my first projects on the Periscopic team, I jumped into this project while the initial concept and approach were coming together. From there, I was the lead designer, responsible for refining the concept and collaborating with our data team, to the creation of final visuals and promotion. My contributions included establishing the overarching visual aesthetic, determining effective data presentation methods, and bringing the final visuals to life. Read the 2020 article here.
I also served as the lead designer for the 2024 adaptation of the original project, responsible for the concepting and strategy of the new direction, copywriting, and production of the final visuals. This version expands on the original concept with updated visuals that reflect 2024 data, new elements that offer deeper insights, and additional visuals.
Inspired by the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, our team set out to explore how much progress had been made towards the inclusion of women in American politics. Visualizing this progress is a useful way to provide historical context and building a better understanding of the gender disparity we see today.
Choosing Our Focus
With most internal projects, close collaboration across teams is an essential part of prioritizing impactful elements and crafting a cohesive story. The data team led much of the research process, working to find credible and comprehensive data sources – a task rarely needed for client projects.
Part of that exploration included looking at state and local government positions. However, we decided to narrow our scope to focus only on Congress, as it represents the highest levels of leadership, resonating with a broader audience and be more effective for sharing on digital platforms.
Delving into the past helped us identify the most important stories to tell, with the intersectionality of race and gender emerging as a meaningful narrative to highlight.
Connecting Past Progress
with Future Paths
While often overlooked, women of color played a pivotal role in the suffragette movement, despite facing compounded discrimination. Their representation in positions of leadership remains crucial for advancing gender and racial equality
We also found it important to acknowledging the work that still lies ahead. To inspire action, we provided a snapshot of what gender representation could look like in the future based on the historical rate of progress and a path that accelerates support for women in Congress.
Experimentation with various design elements was a useful approach in shaping the overall aesthetic vision.
Exploring Creative Directions
With no client requirements, I had the opportunity to explore open-ended creative directions and work closely with other teams to collectively create our vision. I drew from the project’s initial spark of inspiration and conducted further research to capture the spirit of the suffragette movement.
The visual style included thoughtfully selecting fonts reminiscent of those used in pamphlets circulated by suffragists during their campaign for suffrage and designing a color palette and pattern set that was not only functional in the data presentation but also authentic to the historical motifs.
