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Creative Campus Voting Project Wins Design Award

November 17, 2021
A pony tailed student drops an absentee ballot into a mail box. This image also contains the SEGD Global Design Awards logo.

Associate Professors Stephanie Rowden and Hannah Smotrich were recognized in the 2021 SEGD Global Design Awards for their Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Satellite Office.

The project was commended by the jury as ​“a remarkable initiative designed for first-time voters” in which ​“the use of thoughtful design transforms an unfamiliar experience into an easy and welcoming one.”

The award coincides with a recent announcement by the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) — the preeminent research on campus voting— that the UM-Ann Arbor campus had a dramatic increase in student voter participation in 2020. Our campus rate rose 17.7% from 2016, and, at 78% participation, was well above the national average of 66%.

Learn more about the Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Satellite Office and explore Rowden and Smotrich’s multi-year research and creative practice effort: Campus Creative Voting Project.