Episode 97: Candidates and “Creatives”

In Ten Things That Need to Be Redesigned, Jessica asked,

Where is it written that all political candidates must have lawn signs that are red, white and blue?

That was in 2008. With the 2020 election looming (less than a year to the Iowa Caucus!) campaigns for candidates from Kamala Harris to Marianne Williamson have embraced distinctive logos in untraditional color schemes.

Michael says,

What won in 2016 was not a logo but a tagline, and I know that the Hillary Clinton campaign was just so frustrated to find a reductive slogan for the candidate and finally came up with “Stronger Together.” Which is fine, but obviously didn't stick. and I bet a lot of people can't even say it. However, every person can recite, either with pride with clenched teeth, the slogan of her victorious competitor.

Also mentioned this week:

Deroy Peraza, Hyperakt, The Women Running for President Are Breaking the Rules of Branding, also reprinted on Fast Company
Jessica Helfand, Ten Things That Need to Be Redesigned, (2008)
Jonathan V. Last, Kamala Harris’s Logo Is a Disaster. Here’s Why.
Marianne Williamson’s logo
Jessica on Every Little Thing and The Monocle Weekly podcasts
50 Books | 50 Covers competition
Jody Rosen, New York Times Magazine, Does ‘Creative’ Work Free You From Drudgery, or Just Security?
Erin Griffith, New York Times, Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?
Anne Helen Petersen, BuzzFeed News, How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation
Italo Calvino, The Adventure of a Photographer
Ellsworth Kelly stamps
Flowers on Netflix

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Posted in: Arts + Culture, The Observatory

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Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati, and has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1990. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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