The Fascinating Intricacies of Presidential Campaign Graphics

 




photo source: wikipedia

  This may sound pretty dumb, so bear with me. It truly did not occur to me that different presidential campaigns used their own custom designed graphics until last week when I saw fifteen of them organized in rows side by side in our class blog (see here). In my head, I thought of campaign graphics as President's Last Name/VP's Last Name/ Election Year, neatly stacked one on top of the other. You could blame the lack of attention I paid to politics until the 2016 election, the many other factors of elections that did grab my attention and the fact that many of these elements are often repeated in signature campaign graphics, such as Obama/Biden or Ted Cruz 2016.
     And yet some don't include any of the three original factors I stated at all such as Tulsi Gabbard's and Bernie Sanders' current campaign graphics. Whether or not we really take note of the differences in the graphics, they are strategically designed to communicate something to us subconsciously. The chart I referenced, created by designer Haik Avanian according to the blog hyperallergic, sorts the graphics for this election's Democratic nominees (and also Trump) into five categories including Type-In-A-Box, Type Only Lockups and Graphical/WTF. I'll explore some of the design choices that interested me in each of these three (keep in mind, these are my opinions of the graphics only, independent from any opinions I may hold toward the candidates themselves).

1. Donald Trump as seen in Type-In-A-Box-Trump does have one of the busier graphics in the list, although for everything it has going on, it doesn't really feel like a mess. The graphic consists of Trump's last name over Pence's last name (in smaller text) over the phrase Make America Great Again! (in even smaller text) enclosed in a box with a line break and dots at the top (?). The graphic shown does not use color and also consists of a sans-serif font, which makes it feel strong, but also a little cold. If a dominant feel is what you're going for, this works fairly well. Trump also enjoys firing up his crowds, and this is evidenced by the exclamation point, a feature not seen in any of the other graphics on this list.

2. Kamala Harris as seen in Type Only Lockups-This graphic is a favorite of mine among this list. I tend to enjoy very clean and straightforward designs when it comes to something like this. Harris' design doesn't exactly take this approach, but again, it doesn't feel messy. It consists of the words Kamala Harris For The People, arranged in such a way that instead of creating a rectangle, the outline of the text is shaped sort of like America (points for creativity). Another interesting point, the words Kamala Harris are blue while For The People is red, and because of the varying size of the text, it comes out to being about 50/50 red and blue when you look at it. Could this be a message about uniting both sides of the political spectrum? Or is Harris, a Democrat, insinuating that she intends to work for all American's, including Republicans? The graphic is highly thought provoking, and the slogan combined with the color choices and imperfect shape make the graphic feel friendly. 

3. Jay Inslee as seen in Graphical/WTF-WTF indeed. My beef with this graphic is that, out of context, I would not know that this is for someone's political campaign. Between the half globe, the Our Moment slogan and the lack of first name/last name that sounds like it could be a corporation, I feel this graphic fails to clearly communicate what it is and what the candidate would like to say to the nation. In its defense, I did end up googling Inslee, so I guess it succeeded in getting me to learn about the candidate?

     All in all, it was really interesting to dissect these graphics and see what a big difference small details can make in communicating a message to voters. Something that didn't stand out to me in the past now feels incredibly significant.