CONTEXT OF PRACTICE: OUGD501 - ESSAY - THE IMPACT AND INFLUENCE OF DESIGN WITHIN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

THE IMPACT AND INFLUENCE OF DESIGN WITHIN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

This essay will discuss the influence of design within political campaigns and exploring how ‘good’ and ‘bad’ design has been used within western democracies. Branding is a topic that will be covered within this, as it is a key element within political campaigns, exploring how politicians and parties use branding techniques to gain a competitive advantage against their opponents. The use of advertising agencies and graphic designers within politics has become increasingly more popular and looking into the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi and other designers is another topic that will be discussed in this essay. A question to be asked is how does design effect a political campaign, and how much can the design actually affect someone’s political opinion?

A brand is a set of features and characteristics that are associated with a particular product or organisation. It can include anything from a sound to a logo. Branding is something that companies focus on, as gaining a successful brand name will give a product or service a competitive advantage against other similar companies on the market. The brand is the emotional corporate image as a whole, whereas the identity is the visual aspects that form part of the overall brand. “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumers decision to choose one product or service over another” – (Godin, S. 2009).

Identity design plays a major part in a brand as it focuses on the ‘visual devices used within a company, usually assembled within a set of guidelines.’ Cass, J. (2010). The Logo is the main component within the identity of a brand, followed by their products and packaging, stationery, marketing collateral, signage, and the list goes on. Similar to large corporate brands, the Graphic Design used within political campaigns plays a huge part in communicating with their consumers (the public).

Graphic Design is used globally within politics to inform, encourage, and advertise particular political issues. Design can be used to sway society towards making certain decisions regarding the government, for example political campaigns. ‘Political marketing, advertising and public relations have made parties more responsive and stronger communicators’ (Davis, A. 2013).

One political campaign that used design extremely effectively was the Obama Presidential campaign in 2008. The use of social media helped the team to spread the message and ‘should be a guide for every political campaign’ Lamar, M. (2010). The overall design was refreshing in comparison to previous presidential campaigns, which had all looked the same prior to this election (FIGURE 1). This automatically caught the attention of millions of Americans who were preparing themselves to vote in this electoral year. The best way to present the candidates had been to incorporate the American flag into the design, along with a bold, masculine typeface. The use of this technique was always intentional, as it had become clear that the most successful presidential campaigns were the ones that followed these rules. George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and John F Kennedy are perfect examples as to where this design could be seen (FIGURE 2). Barack Obama and his media team demolished these traditional design methods after hiring Sol Sender to design his logo. The overall design of the campaign was extremely strong as it was a good representation of what Obama was proposing to do if he was to be made President, Sol Sender said ‘There was a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics – ‘a new day’ so to speak’ Thomas, S. (2010). The campaign did still continue to use the traditional Red, White, Blue colour scheme, but the approach to the rest of the design had a much more conceptual background. The consistency of the logo meant that it was not only a campaign, but a brand in itself. The logo could be used in isolation of Obama’s name and still be identified easily, this was vital in the campaign as it meant that whenever the American public saw the logo, they automatically associated it with the Obama campaign. The importance of concise and conceptual design is evidenced in the success of the Obama campaign, which led him to be voted the President of the United States for eight years (2008-2016).

In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party hired Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising agency, to design promotional material for their political campaign. They were the first party in the UK to hire an external advertising agency to design material to help move forward the political campaign. ‘Saatchi & Saatchi made history with a political poster that is probably the most effective ever produced.’ The Independent (2007)The founders Charles and Maurice Saatchi were not interested in politics, and the job given to them by the Conservative Party was in fact just a job and they would treat it as any other project. Their advertisement for the Conservatives caused much controversy, and they soon became household names. The poster showed a line of people queuing at an unemployment office with bold text saying ‘LABOUR ISN’T WORKING.” Then below states that “Britain’s better off with the conservatives”. The ad did all the work in convincing the public that the Labour government was not stable, and that something needed to be done about it. ‘Thatcher ran to an easy victory in the May 3 election’ The Independent (2007). This is a perfect example of successful use of Graphic Design in Politics as the public was so easily convinced, and swayed from one government to another.

In April 2017, Theresa May called for a shock general election to take place on June 8^th, following the step down of David Cameron a year earlier, after it was voted that Britain would leave the EU (Brexit). It was thought that the Conservative Party would win the election by a landslide. However Jeremy Corbyns tactics meant that Labour was able to gain seats in Parliament. Labour invested their resources into Social Media, promoting the hashtag #ForTheMany for their campaign. Rather than using personality politics like the Conservatives, Labour chose to use the party name as their identity. The use of red and white was used throughout their entire campaign, as it has always been the colours associated with the Labour party. Their design material included a ‘more imaginative range of imagery to place greater emphasis on the general public rather than the leader’ Dawood, S. (2017). Whilst their design was fresher than the Conservatives, it is consistency within a brand that is key, and this is what could have impacted Labours campaign. They used colours associated with other parties to talk down the opponents. At a glance it may be seen as promotional material for those parties, rather than for Labour, as a wide range of styles and graphics may be confusing for voters (FIGURE 3).

Colour association within politics can have a massive influence on how the public interact with political issues. One place where colour association could have affected the result is within the vote to remain or leave the EU. The Remain campaign used the colours of the union jack - Red, White and Blue (FIGURE 4), whilst the Leave opted for Red, White and Black (FIGURE 5). Given that the Leave campaign was run by Conservative supporter, Boris Johnson, it seemed an odd colour selection as Red is so strongly associated with the Labour Party. Colour is extremely impressionable, and has a subconscious power on the human brain, colour psychology shows the affect of particular colours and tells us how we respond to them. Blue is associated with the feeling of calmness and serenity, and often represents stability and reliability, whilst Red is a more emotional colour, representing anger and passion along with strength and danger. It has been proven that Red enhances human metabolism and attracts attention more than any other colour. Not only did the Leave campaign select the ‘most active colour’ Coke, R. (2016), but they also chose the most powerful name – Brexit. When designing a campaign, the language used must be considered to match the feel and look of the design itself. Language plays a huge part in design and when used effectively can influence people’s decisions. The name ‘‘Brexit’ ticks all the boxes for a strong brand name: short, easy to spell, good mouthfeel.’Coke, R. (2016). Nigel Farage attempted to imitate Saatchi & Saatchi’s successful ‘Labour isn’t working’ poster (FIGURE 6), with his ‘Breaking Point’ advert (FIGURE 7). The advert was an anti-migrant poster that showed a huge line of people, supposedly immigrants, along with the strap-line ‘The EU has failed us all’, followed by ‘We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders’. The image was likened to ‘Nazi Propaganda’ as the people in the image turned out to be refugees, rather than immigrants. The poster was reported to the police ‘with a complaint that it incites racial hatred and breaches UK race laws’ Stewart, H. Mason, R. (2016). Whilst the advert was unsuccessful due to its controversy, there’s no doubt that it left an impression in peoples minds that leaving the European Union would address the hot topic of immigration to the UK. Regardless of how outrageous some of the design and advertising for the Leave campaign was, the result of the vote shows that this approach was far more effective than the Remain campaign, as it was less convincing and perhaps too tame for the subject matter.

In recent times, Political campaigns have begun to focus more on the branding of the politicians involved and the people who they are representing, rather than the policies and their future plans for the country. They are investing vast amounts of money in every campaign, and the parties are working alongside the media to gain a better public image. It has become a popularity contest amongst the people running in western democracy. Recently the UK have seen the likes of the Conservative and Labour party fighting against each other, and the U.S.A has seen Trump and Clinton.

The Clinton / Kaine presidential campaign was designed by Pentagram partners Michael Bierut and Jesse Reed. They designed a logo that had a red arrow, embedded with a blue ‘H’, this symbol became synonymous with her campaign (FIGURE 8). Clinton, like most other Presidential candidates, used the traditional Red, White, Blue colour scheme, along with a white sans-serif custom typeface, ‘Unity’, created by Lucas Sharp. The logo was put next to the word ‘America’, in the attempt to depict “Hillary for America”, which was her slogan for the campaign. Clinton’s campaign focused heavily on using words such as ‘she’, ‘her’ and ‘daughter’, in her fight for gender equality, considering she would have been the first Female President of the United States. She also used classic feminist imagery within her campaign, and had high profile female celebrities to help promote her campaign, such as Katy Perry and The Kardashian family. Humour was also incorporated into her campaign, as she had bumper stickers that would say ‘Love Trumps Hate’, and an image of her opponent, Trump’s face with a large ‘Nope’ plastered across it. The Clinton campaign was defeated by Trump in November 2016.

Unknown designers created Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and initially had a rather controversial logo that depicted a ‘T’ letterform penetrating a ‘P’ (FIGURE 9), which was later scrapped due to becoming the ‘subject of ridicule by disparagers of the candidate as they saw an alternative meaning behind the symbol’ Dawood, S. (2016). After the controversial interlocking symbol was removed, no icon took its place, instead keeping a bold sans-serif logotype for ‘Trump’ and ‘Pence’, paired with their slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’ (FIGURE 10). The slogan was probably the strongest thing about Trump’s campaign, and it could be seen on hats and t-shirts worn by Republican supporters. His campaign is an example of where the graphics used were not as important to the supporters as it was the Brand behind Trump that won the election. ‘It was Brand Trump’s rhetoric for change that engaged the disenfranchised public, rather than his lack of attention to logo design detail.’ Dawood, S. (2016). The Trump supporters were attracted by the ‘American Dream’ image that Trump was portraying, promoting the ideal American lifestyle. Trump took this approach as he knew that thousands of Americans would back the idea, as it has been an ideal in America since 1931.

The examples covered within this essay have shown how design can be used to represent particular issues within politics. Whilst there are some campaigns that have meticulously used design to portray what that particular politician/party are offering, others focused more on the power of the message, rather than the aesthetic quality of the design. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign showed a refreshing design that differentiated him from his opponents, the logo used was an accurate representation of what he was offering to do if he was to be made President. In contrast to this Trump’s design focused less on the visual aspects of the design, and more on his ‘rhetoric for change’ Dawood, S. (2016). It is clear that there are some aspects within a design that can influence people more than others, colour being a strong contributor as it leaves a subconscious impression on the human brain. This can be seen in the Brexit discussion, and the success of the Leave campaign. To conclude, it is evident that whilst the design can have a massive impact on the result of a public election, the language used can often take over the attention.

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