By Grace Wyant
Ironwood City Reporter
As delegates of the 79th session of Arizona Girls State begin to create their campaign materials, we are provided with an opportune time to investigate the psychology of design..
After 4pm on Tuesday there was an explosion of colorful posters that coated the walls of the dorm. All of these posters are meant to attract attention to a specific candidate, and aid in her election campaign.
Different colors can evoke an immediate subconscious emotional association in our minds, and can be utilized by these delegates for different ends.
The color blue is commonly associated with calmness or competence, similar to water. It can lower people’s heart rates and projects safety.
In contrast with this, the color red can signal passion, action, and defiance. This color, different from blue, grabs the viewer’s attention faster than any other and is often used to trigger a sense of urgency or an important need to fight, which can be helping in motivating a vote.
Furthermore, even the text style and poster layout play a substantial role in how we perceive a candidate. The use of ALL CAPS projects confidence and commands attention, Title Case can feel professional, or lowercase can feel conversational and empathetic, especially for teenagers.
The format of campaign materials can influence their impact as well. Studies of eye tracking show that viewers scan materials in specific patterns, known as the F-Pattern and Z-Pattern (Pernice).
An example of the F-Pattern is shown in the following image, while the Z-Pattern functions similarly, following the pattern of the letter it was named for.
As you walk around the dorms and are confronted with the myriad of posters, you’re likely to see many effective posters that lead you to follow this same pattern of eye movement.
In addition to this, a mnemonic can function as a psychological anchor. It can hold up space in the viewer’s mind, since rhyming helps with memory retention by utilizing acoustic encoding. This allows the human brain to process and remember information through the auditory patterns.
Mnemonic devices like rhyming make the information about a candidate more memorable because they create patterns that are easier for the brain to recall, and therefore delegates can utilize them to stand out from the crowd.
As you view posters around campus, take stock of the posters that you notice. There may be a pattern in those that stand out to you the most. Based on what you learned from this article, take stock of how those delegates, intentionally or unintentionally, used the psychology of design to motivate you to remember them, and to cast a vote in their favor in the next election.