It was January 2019. I was meeting Doreen Garlid, a first-time candidate for Tempe City Council, for the first time, and we were talking color.

Dark blue, I told her, was overplayed. The 2020 council election was a week before Arizona's presidential primary. Who wanted to make a municipal race look like contentious partisan politics? She had decades of experience in local civic and community organizations. That wasn't the kind of attitude she was hoping to bring to city government.

Instead, the idea of a reddish orange—inspired by Tempe's Papago Park—came up. It was the design decision that launched a campaign.

The Doreen Garlid campaign keyed off of that orange, backed by a warm off-white and dark green, as well as a design element that was ubiquitous in all of the assets: a "Suncrop", a set of concentric circles recalling the sun in the City of Tempe logo (and the rock formations in Papago Park). It turned out to be a perfect match for Doreen's personality and style.

The campaign unfolded over more than a year and included digital elements such as those shown above—including for some fundraisers supporting multiple candidates—as well as advertising in local community newspapers, yard and street signs, and a series of three mailers that reached homes as the ballots did. The clean, uncluttered style of the mailers, relying on candidate photography, contrasted with the text-filled, overly stuffed materials from other council candidates.

How did it turn out? Of five candidates running for three seats, Doreen got the most votes of any of them—including two incumbents—despite never having run for office before. Now that's a winning campaign.