The presidential election season is upon us. Whether you’re ready or not, there’s a flood of new political candidates clamoring for your vote. In fact, at most recent count, there are 24 candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s hard to keep up. But, we’re not here for the politics. We’re here for the branding. With every election season, we’re exposed to a new wave of political branding. We’re inundated with political commercials, lawn signs, banners, and bumper stickers. Indeed, there are so many elements at play in a political brand identity that we couldn’t possibly cover it all in just one article. So, let’s lay out our ground rules. We know that a brand encompasses so much more than design. It’s also the words you say, the actions you take, and the impact you make on the people and world around us. Political branding is about how a political individual, organization, or campaign is perceived by the public. Importantly, in politics, just like in business, your brand is not what you say it is – it’s how others actually see your brand. Since we specialize in visual brand identity at crowdspring, we’re going to focus on the elements that we think are among the most important to a strong brand – logo design and website design. Over the last decade, our community of 220,000 designers has helped many local, state, and national political candidates with branding for their campaigns. We’ve gained many insights along the way. So, who’s doing it right and who’s off the mark? Here are our insights about the branding in the democratic presidential primary race… The Overview: Most candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination have done very little to successfully differentiate themselves through their branding. Most of what you’ll see are variations on the theme of name-in-a-box (see Tim Ryan, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Bill de Blasio, Michael Bennet or Beto O’Rourke) or plain wordmarks (see Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer, Marianne Williamson, Kamala Harris, Wayne Messam, Amy Klobuchar, etc.). And, while it’s true that these candidates all generally have more or less professional-looking logos, few of the designs are very effective at differentiating a candidate from their competitors or embodying their vision for America. Finally, remember that these observations do not reflect our political views – it’s all about the branding. With that said, let’s take a look at the best and worst Democratic candidates have to offer. The Best Political Branding of 2020 “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg So, Mayor Pete’s branding gets right what so many other candidates do wrong. His branding is unique and stands out from the pack, while still managing to look authoritative and reliable. Pete Buttigieg (pronounced “Boot Edge Edge” as his clever merchandise tells us) wants the American people to know that his presidency would not be business as usual. You can tell this right away from the visual cues he’s provided with his fresh navy/mustard/dusty aqua color palette. Navy anchors Buttigieg’s brand colors in..
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