- With each 2020 presidential candidate's campaign announcement comes a logo and accompanying branding for their campaign, including fundraising websites, advertising, and social-media posts.
- We asked five graphic-design and branding experts to rate the logos of the 2020 presidential candidates on a scale of 1 to 10, in which 1 is the worst, 5.5 is just okay, and 10 is excellent.
- Our panel of judges were not generally impressed by the logos thus far.
- The writer, designer, and podcast host Debbie Millman called Andrew Yang's logo "an abomination."
- Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke got the most positive feedback out of the 16 logos that were reviewed.
With the 2020 election already in full swing, presidential candidates have unveiled their (sometimes) shiny new logos.
Branding has always played a huge role in politics, but it is especially important in the digital age, when people's first interactions with a candidate are often through their website or social-media presence. If a candidate's logo, slogans, colors, and messaging don't stand out in an already crowded race, it can greatly influence how far they make it and how much name recognition they gain.
In 2008, then Sen. Barack Obama's iconic "O" became the symbol his campaign ran on. This created a shift in how candidates treated their branding, which was reflected in future campaigns. In 2016, Hillary Clinton attempted to replicate this effect with an "H" that incorporated an arrow across the letter.
According to Deroy Peraza, the principal and creative director at the Brooklyn-based design studio Hyperakt, the most successful 2020 branding will come from campaigns that "aren’t afraid to show the identity of the candidate and break with traditional norms, which in political branding are red, white and blue."
We saw the influence of having a unique color pallete during the 2018 midterm elections, when freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made history as the youngest woman elected to Congress. She stood out from her longtime-incumbent opponent by highlighting her heritage and youthfulness with a bright yellow and purple color pallete for her logo and posters.
Now other candidates are attempting to replicate her success. Sen. Kamala Harris, Marianne Williamson, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are all experimenting with color in their 2020 campaigns. But color is only part of the battle when it comes to branding. There are many other elements, including typeface, layout, and slogan choice that can ultimately make or break a logo.
We asked five graphic-design and branding experts to rate the 2020 campaign logos on a scale of 1 to 10, in which 1 is the worst, 5.5 is just okay, and 10 is excellent. Our panel of judges consisted of:
- Steven Heller: Author, coauthor, and editor of more than 100 books on design and popular culture, and the cofounder and cochair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts.
- Ellen Lupton:Curator at Cooper Hewitt and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art.
- Dan Formosa: Design consultant, writer, and cofounder of the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts.
- Jenna Navitsky:Executive creative director at the Brooklyn-based branding and design agency Red Antler.
- Debbie Millman: Writer, designer, cofounder of the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts, and host of the Design Matters podcast.
The following ranking of logos is based on the average score each one received from our panel.
SEE ALSO: Here's everyone who has officially announced they are running for president in 2020
15. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
Average score: 2.2/10
Heller: 2/10 – "Poor type choice."
Lupton: 3/10– "Whose moment? The candidate’s? The Democrats’? Who is this candidate? Who are the Democrats?"
Formosa: 3/10 – "More of a corporate logo than a personal logo, with a message 'Our moment' that says little."
Navitsky: 3/10 – "Secretly I want to give this a 10 because it’s so unexpected and weird, but ultimately it doesn’t feel like there’s a human behind it. And that seems fairly problematic."
Millman: 0/10 – No comment given.
14. Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney
Average score: 2.6/10
Heller: 4/10 – "Why not go OBAMA all the way and just use the D with the red, white and blue highway?"
Lupton: 4/10 – "An interstate highway heading to the future? No thanks. I’ll walk."
Formosa: 2/10 – "For whatever positive qualities you would hope to see embodied in a presidential candidate, I can safely say that none of them are being communicated here."
Navitsky: 2/10– "Lots of competing elements here. I’m also not sure if this is a presidential candidate or someone who is going to be refinishing driveways."
Millman: 1/10– No comment given.
13. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang
Average score: 2.7/10
Heller: 4.5/10 – "Conventional, but using the flag in a somewhat clever fashion."
Lupton: 3/10 – "The flag cliché is really struggling here."
Formosa: 2/10 – "Not much to say about this red, white, and blue logo other than it looks like it’s coming from someone running for mayor of a small town. It’s not communicating anything beyond that to convince you he’s the guy you want."
Navitsky: 4/10– "Forward momentum seems like the right message to send for 2020, but this overall feels pretty safe."
Millman: 0/10 – "An abomination."
Read more about Yang's campaignhere.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider