The Women Running for President Are Breaking the Rules of Branding

By Deroy Peraza, Partner at Hyperakt

This article was featured in Co.Design on January 30, 2019

American political campaign branding has been dominated by red, white, and blue (RWB) for far too long. Yes, these are the colors of our beloved flag, but the idea that presidential candidates have an unspoken obligation to pay homage to classic symbols of patriotism with their campaign branding seems decidedly outdated. Our culture and our politics have come a long way since our flag was designed. Branding has become more sophisticated and pervasive, coming at us from every conceivable angle both on and offline.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s game-changing presidential campaign, with its deep appreciation for the power of design as an organizing tool, reinvigorated political branding for the digital age. Now, a diverse pool of female democratic presidential candidates is shaking things up at a time when our country is in desperate need of a new vision for leadership. They are leading the next big leap in presidential branding — breaking the RWB color barrier — and as a result, opening the door for change.

While the RWB mantra has dominated the last century of presidential campaign branding, there have been a few rebels along the way. The most radical was Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980. A wealthy peanut farmer from Georgia, Carter’s view of patriotism was rooted in the green fields of rural America. He cultivated his image as a working man more comfortable on the farm than in bustling cities. He was often pictured in open collar shirts and blue jeans, which was unprecedented for presidential campaigns. For Carter, the disciplined use of green and white throughout all of his campaign materials was a sort of love letter to nature. He rode the green all the way to the presidency in 1976. But Carter is the lone mainstream candidate within the two major parties who has taken a detour from the RWB highway of American presidential campaign branding.

Two other campaigns are notable for their nonconformity, although their use of alternative colors wasn’t as thorough as Carter’s. The first two African-American candidates for president from a major party — Democrats Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988 — both incorporated bright yellows into their materials. In a stirring speech at the 1984 Democratic convention, Jackson foreshadowed what some current candidates are playing out through their brands:

The significance of these candidacies is undeniable. They created a foundation upon which we can build a broader visual language to accurately reflect the diversity of our national identity.

Back in 2013, Matt Ipcar, then VP of strategy at Blue State Digital, gave a Lunch Talk at Hyperakt. The talk was a post-mortem on the process of updating Barack Obama’s now famous presidential campaign identity from its 2008 gradient glory to the more in vogue, flat versions used for the 2012 campaign. During the talk, Matt gave our audience of designers some memorable advice in the event they found themselves working on future presidential campaigns:

I remember clearly how spot-on Matt’s wisdom felt at the time. The high production value and disciplined branding of the Obama campaigns deserve a great deal of credit for raising the standards of campaign branding, proving that great branding provides a powerful platform to build trust, tell stories and engage the public imagination. But experimenting with non-traditional color palettes was never in the cards. His campaign branding was more concerned with quality and modernity than it was with confronting established norms. His mantras of optimism and hope were appropriately conveyed with brighter blues than had been common until that point, but that’s about as far as he pushed the color envelope. I worked on a series of posters in support of the Obama campaign in 2008 and remember very intentionally exploring non-traditional color palettes precisely because it felt like something the official campaign would never do.

Kirsten Gillibrand has a long track record advocating for women. She’s putting her feminist credentials front and center and reinforcing her pledge to make women’s rights a cornerstone of her campaign with her choice of “pussy hat” pink.

Tulsi Gabbard makes use of a radiant orange sun in her mark to pair well with her “bright future” slogan and to remind us of her Hawaiian origins.

Castro, a former mayor of San Antonio, Obama Cabinet member, and Democratic National Convention keynote speaker, has made some smart design moves with his branding. He has stayed away from visual clichés and has cleverly called attention to his Mexican roots by highlighting the accent in his first name, Julián. The brand notably downplays his last name, which might conjure up unsavory associations to Cuba’s former dictator for some voters.

Booker’s campaign also focused on the candidate’s first name, opting for some fresh bold typography in their mark. The campaign’s brand applications and website prominently feature Booker’s toothy smile front and center positioning him as the optimist in a campaign filled with candidates who convey anger and indignation about the current state of affairs in our nation. That could go either way for him –– it’s a differentiator, but it feels a bit dissonant for the moment.

Despite the branding strengths of these two campaigns, their traditional color choices feel like a missed opportunity. In Castro’s case, the limited blue palette does little to convey warmth, approachability, or a bold vision for new leadership. In Booker’s case, a little bit more adventurousness could have helped send a signal that he’s not another boilerplate member of the Democratic political machine.

Unlike the female candidates, the men have 45 male presidents to whom they can harken back. Men continue to lean on the conventional wisdom and branding playbook of past winners. The result is a collection of bland, generic brands that feel like politics as usual at a time when Democrats have expressed a thirst for fresh, courageous leadership. This inability to think differently when it comes to branding — an exercise in trust-building and clear communication — is a clue we shouldn’t ignore about the leadership styles these candidates would bring to the presidency. For better or for worse, women have no such standard to uphold or rules to abide by.

AOC’s unorthodox (by American political design standards) campaign branding provided a convenient trial balloon for 2020 candidates. Her campaign identity brilliantly blended influence from grassroots movement posters with a color palette that bypassed red, white and blue cliches of patriotism in favor of purples and yellows. The typography, all set at a dynamic angle in both English and Spanish, is complimented by a headshot that manages to feel both determined and friendly at the same time. The overall result felt refreshingly different and completely authentic in its encapsulation of AOC’s candidacy. Most importantly, she won! Without a doubt, every Democratic candidate noticed her iconic branding, as did every designer working on their campaigns.