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Leadership By Design

The Ontario election is this Thursday.  It is my right and my privilege to vote, and I find like any voter, I like to be well informed on what the political world likes to call “the issues”.

What issues affect me, the young, urban designer?  Education?  I’m done school and I don’t have any kids.  Taxes?  I don’t own any property, nor am I a corporation.  Auto Insurance?  I don’t own a car.  I’m not a senior, a child, First Nations, a woman, a Francophone, homosexual, or homeless.

Well, dear God, what issues am I supposed to find important?  I guess I could base my decision on the quality of their web design.  That would at least tell me which party has an eye for colour and aesthetic.  That’s important in a global economy, isn’t it?

So let’s get down to it:

The Liberals
Well, it’s not hideous.  But it’s nothing too special.  The Reds’ site is well laid out, information is easy to find, and I dare you to tell me that Dalton McGuinty isn’t a happy-looking fella.  He sure is that. 

They seem to have videos available, so the Libs are embracing the technology at least.  Unfortunately, it’s Windows Media and Real Video.  I’m not even gonna touch it.  Yecch.

All in all, get rid of the messy hard-to-read top banner and you’ve got yourself a perfectly functional site!

The Conservatives
Yowza!  What’s worse—a splash page with bad typography, or a splash page with Ernie Eves’s smiling mug?  How about a splash page with both!

Once inside, the PC’s site has a crisp corporate look to it.  Coincidence?  We have a useless piece of flash throwing buzzwords at me like “strength” and “leadership”, and the site is laden down with reams of information all displayed in an unnattractive manner.  It’s a good thing these guys are such pricks or else I’d feel bad that they have such a sucky website.

Maybe one of the MP’s told Ernie, “Hey, I got a nephew who knows computers!” and that’s how this mess was made.  Who knows.  Either way, the design looks like it was left over from the dot com crash when everyone wanted to look corporate and respectable.  “We’re profitable!  No, really!”

The New Democrats
Am I seeing things correctly?  Attractive site design, good typography, simple intuitve navigation… the NDP’s on the right track!

Video in Quicktime!  And with thumbnail previews!  And MP3s, too… nothing like a little street cred!

If I can find only one real problem with the site it’s that the photo of Howard Hampton that’s on EVERY page makes it look like he has to take a crap.  Lighten up, Howie!  Take a page from the book of McGuinty and smile a little!

The Green Party
Oops!  Another splash page!  That, plus Frank de Jong telling us all at the debates to go out and vote on the 3rd (hint: the election is on the 2nd), the Green Party isn’t off to a good start.

Now, I appreciate and understand the message of the Green Party, but does the website have to look like it belongs to a landscaping company?

Another problem I’m finding is that several links take me to a pop-up window with information from what looks like a previous site design.  So bonus points for social justice and environmental responsibility, but a couple demerits for consistency in design.  I know you hippies hate looking corporate, but even raging against the machine can benefit from proper branding.

The Communist Party, the Libertarian Party, the Family Coalition, and the Freedom Party are all equally hideous in ways that are best left unsaid.  Go take a look and see for yourself.

Heck, the Provincial Confederation of Regions Party has a “404 Page Not Found” for its site.  Way to campaign, guys.  I mean, if you can’t even keep a website running, how can I trust you to provincially confederate my regions?

The Result:

The winner by a long shot is the NDP!  Following them are the Liberals, then the Green Party, and trailing at the end are the Tories (not including all those ugly “lesser” parties, of course).

But, as far as non-partisan election-related sites go, Elections Ontario is pretty slick.  Contemporary typography, professional photography, and the understanding that a website needs to be more than a bunch of Word documents with the same background colour and some clipart make this site the real winner.  It’s a great looking site.  Too bad I can’t vote for them!