My Yard Our Message

Yard signs are a ubiquitous political manifestation during every election season in the United States. Launched in conjunction with the United States presidential election and Republican National Convention held in St. Paul, Minnesota, My Yard Our Message (MYOM) put a twist on the standard political yard signs, asking the public to design yard signs representing their own ideas and agendas. The entire process of soliciting, ranking, and locating signs was facilitated by myyardourmessage.com, a web-app built specifically for this project. 

 

 

In June 2008, the project was announced and participating users were given a month to create signs. Users were provided with template files for different imaging programs. Users uploaded their high-resolution signs to the site and web-sized previews were generated and available for view. A total of 298 signs were submitted and approved. In the process of submitting signs, users were required to license their work under the Creative Commons, allowing others to share and remix. A simple Facebook application also allowed users to embed the signs on their Facebook profiles. Embed code was also provided to allow users to place signs on other sites.

 

 

In July 2008, a month-long public voting process began, allowing the public at large to cast votes for their favorite  signs. Over 24,000 votes were cast on the submitted signs. Users were presented with a unique randomized list of signs and asked if they would put a given sign in their yard, a similar voting mechanism as is used on social news sites like Digg or Reddit.

 

 

In August 2008, the vote totals were made public and the top 50 signs were officially announced as winners. We were happy to see the top 50 signs were truly the most creative and best designed signs. Winning signs were submitted to our custom store on Cafepress.com, which facilitated on-demand printing of the signs. Over the course of the project and through the November 4 election, over 500 signs were ordered and printed.

 

 

Additionally, three neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul agreed to act as outdoor exhibition spaces, and were provided with a set of signs to show, especially poignant during the Republican National Convention. Participating sign-owners could enter their signs into a Google Map on the site, helping guide visitors to see the signs in person.

 

 

The project was produced with a very small budget, dedicated mostly to printing signs distributed to neighborhoods. One developer/designer created the site, based on the django web framework, in about 3 months. We think it's an innovative site because it combines aspects of multiple categories and doesn't sit solely in one. The end result of the project was both a online exhibition and several outdoor public art exhibitions.  The project was based around the Republication National Convention, happening in the Twin Cities community, but didn't particularly embrace community features on the web. We think innovative fits because it is innovative for a museum and non-profit to engage in grassroots web 2.0 way with political discourse and public art making. 

 

Please note: Myyardourmessage.com currently displays a static, archived view of the site as seen after the election in November 2008. Please see the submission, landscape view, and voting screenshots for glimpses into the history of the site as it evolved over the project's phase.