Title: The Power of Political Graphic Design on Elections
Author: Nadja Sayej
The Author: Nadja Sayej is a culture journalist who writes for countless websites, magazines, and news stations that cover entertainment, film., TV, contemporary art, music, comedy and more. She has also published five books.
Summary: This article explains the “Do’s and Don’ts” of political design through the eyes of the Three Creative Communications political design firm. There is no question that political design is very influential on swaying voters and either helping or hurting a campaign or candidate. The firm’s content director, Domenica Ghanem, believes that their political design is not actually swaying voters but rather “effectively informing voters.” It stresses the importance of correctly informing the voters about the issues they care about and using messages that will get to the middle of the issue being addressed. This helps with connecting to the voters by connecting to the values they hold.
Domenica Ghanem also said, “It’s about building a relationship between the people and who they want representing them and, we’re reaching them everywhere they actually are—through print, web and mobile.”
Using print, web and mobile ways of advertising a political campaign is important because the more people see your message the more, they will begin to connect with it. There are some rules in political design, however. The colors red and blue will always mean and separate the two national parties. This is something that has always been used in design and will continue to be. However, there has been a shift in design in order to be less about the party but about the candidate themselves. Along with this, certain typefaces, fonts and colors have associations to certain parties or ideals that political graphic designers need to be aware about.
Lastly, this article stressed the importance of election day publicity. Election day should be the day that most advertising is getting out and in the face of the voters. This is important because it reminds them at the last minute who they should be voting for.
Overall, this article covered a lot on how political designers decide to take action and what options they have to do so.
Citation: Sayej, Nadja. “The Power of Political Graphic Design on Elections.” PRINT, PRINT, 16 Sept. 2020, www.printmag.com/post/the-power-of-political-graphic-design-on-elections.
Title: How Democrats Designed Branding for the First Virtual National Convention
Author: Hunter Schwarz
The Author: Hunter Schwarz is a writer who covers the intersection of politics and pop culture. He has worked for numerous major news outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN, BuzzFeed and AIGA.
Summary: This article covered the differences between having a normal in person National Convention compared to having one completely virtual online. The normal National Convention was full of billboards, posters, signage, and other visual graphics that made the event so powerful. It was where a group of similar thinking people get to meet and celebrate their party and everything that it stands for. Because of COVID, this was no longer an option for the 2020 election, and it was forced online. Although being forced to go all online seemed unfortunate and devastating at first, it quickly became the beginning of many new opportunities for political graphics.
There are certain visuals that go along with and represent the different parties very well. The Democrats have the Donkey, and the Republicans have the Elephant. Now that everything was moved to online, the opportunity to create new visuals and graphics for the Democratic party exploded.
One huge thing that designers did for this National Convention was allow supporters to customize and personalize social graphics for their social media pages, avatars, smartphone wallpapers, zoom backgrounds and more. This was a very smart move because it continued to get the visuals and the message of their party out in the world and create advertising.
Because of COVID, the world of political graphic design changed, and it opened a door for a new world of possibilities.
Citation: Schwarz, Hunter. “How Democrats Designed Branding for the First Virtual National Convention.” Eye on Design, 18 Aug. 2020, eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-democrats-designed-branding-for-the-first-virtual-national-convention/.
Title: Politics, Politics
Author: Steven Heller
The Author: Steven Heller (design writer) is many things. He was the art director at New York Times for 33 years and is currently the MFA Designer as Author Department, Special Consultant to the President of SVA for New Programs and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review.
Summary: This article covers the changes that were being made in political magazines with The Nation and George (both magazine titles). The article starts by explaining how the American political graphic design magazine has always been about inspiring national politics and always having a distinct look that did not vary all that much. This began to change with two political magazines The Nation and George.
The Nation is Americas older publication of the left side and visually reinvented itself in order to attract a new audience without scaring away the loyal long-time readers that they have had for many years. They did this by continuing to be very well informed and educated and giving only the facts while now creating a new visually attractive cover and illustrations that help intrigue the newer readers.
One thing the author points out is that there was never a clear distinct style between the left and the right in political magazines until both began to target younger audiences and move towards full-color covers for their issues.
Overall, the most important thing this article covered was how graphic design politics was re-invented in order to not only better represent the party’s better but also make them more distinct from one another. It points out that while this is a great tactic to personalize a party and separate the two, it is dangerous in that it causes more divide than it unites.
Citation: Heller, Steven. “Politics, politics.” Print, vol. 50, no. 4, July-Aug. 1996, p. 20+. Gale Academic.OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A18668874/AONE?u=s8405248&sid=AONE&xid=928adbfc. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021
Title: The Influence of Graphic Design on Politics, Protest, and Power
Author: Charlotte Jansen
The Author: Charlotte Jansen is a talented researcher, writer and editor-at-large for the Elephant, the Guardian, Artsy, Vice, Wallpaper and more. Along with this, she has written two books and works primarily on contemporary art and culture and its social purpose and impact.
Summary: This article explains the effects that graphic design has on politics and how graphic design by itself will always be political once it is open to the public.
The ‘Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics’ museum was created to illustrate a deep dive into the graphic design of the last decade. There have been so many changes in the world politically, culturally and physically that have greatly impacted the way that graphic design is interpreted and released into the public. One of the main goals of the ‘Hope to Nope’ museum was to demonstrate how graphic design “informs, educates, entertains and provokes” the general public. New technologies have now democratized graphic design and made it political. Because of this new technology, everyone is able to have a clear political voice online and illustrate it in a way that speaks the most truth to them using hashtags, posts, or even memes.
Along with this, there are moments in graphic design that have propelled action and changed the course of history. Lucienne Roberts, the graphic designer behind the Hope to Nope museum said, “Whether effective or not, graphic design, especially once out in the public space, is always political.”
Now more than ever this statement rings true and holds power over the future of politics.
Citation: Jansen, Charlotte. “The Influence of Graphic Design on Politics, Protest and Power.” Wallpaper*, Wallpaper*, 24 Apr. 2018, www.wallpaper.com/art/hope-to-nope-graphics-politics-design-museum-london.
