Campaign Branding For 2024 – Hunter Schwarz (Yello)

Hunter Schwarz:

You could come out with a logo, the designers are like, oh my gosh. And it just falls flat with voters. Like, you're not designing for designers, you're designing for voters.

Eric Wilson:

I'm Eric Wilson, managing Partner of Startup Caucus, the home of campaign tech Innovation on the right. Welcome to the Business of Politics Show. On this podcast, you are joining in on a conversation with entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. We're talking with Hunter Schwartz, a journalist whose yellow website and Sub stack Chronicles everything related to politics and design. His newsletter is a weekly must read for me, and if you're subscribed to Learn Test Optimize, you know, I link to his stories all the time. He's been a reporter at C n n, the Washington Post IJ review and buzzfeed, so he's got a long track record of bylines. In this episode, we discussed the role of branding in modern politics, what he thinks about the 2024 Republican logos and the design trends, he hopes crossover into politics. So, hunter, what role does branding play in modern political campaigns?

Hunter Schwarz:

I really see branding as part of communication similar to rhetoric. It's just, it's about consistency of message. If you go to a campaign rally you know, for Bernie Sanders, you're gonna expect him to talk about the millionaires and billionaires. If you see a graphic for graphic from him, you're gonna expect to see, you know, his color scheme, his tight face, jubilot. There's kind of, you, you want this consistency across visual communication to communicate to voters. And, and one thing that I think is that separates design and politics from other forms of design is that you're, you're dealing with a lot of constraints unique to politics. You know, you have to build a brand that other designers can work with on the fly. You don't have a lot of time for a lot of this stuff. So you need to be able to produce a high volume and kind of different from like corporate branding where it's infinite. You're constantly advertising to grow your, your brand's revenue share. Political design is finite. Like you have until election day. You're, you're working on this startup and you're trying to get people to vote for your candidate or cause. So there's, there's a lot of constraints that make it different than other forms of design, but I really think it just comes down to communication.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, and I, you, you hit on, of course, the, the real challenges, which are the, the logo has to be used everywhere by everyone. And, and one of the things that has made it even more important in, in, you know, 20, 23 and beyond is that there are so many new, new places to put your campaigns, branding. So you think about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube in, in addition to what you previously had to do, which were yard signs, bumper stickers, letterhead. Right? And, and we're just seeing it so many more places and more and more voters, of course, are getting their information online. So it really has shot up in, in importance over, over in, in the online era.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. And, and I think you're, you're, you're reaching, you know, you talk about ha you have to be on all these different platforms, and there's different sizes for the graphics too. You know, there's all these considerations that come into that. And, and I think another thing is I've been doing a lot of research lately about the evolution of campaign merchandise and ephemera and just, you, you kind of have this point in the mid 20th century where it goes from being stuff that's for mass consumption to stuff that's more for your true believers, your core supporters. And that, that's really made me wonder you know, kind of where are we in going into 2024 in terms of, of how much of this stuff? Because I, I think you, you are trying to reach both audiences. You're trying to reach a, a mass national audience, but you're also communicating to your supporters. So it needs to be a brand that can be capable of doing both of those things.

Eric Wilson:

That's really interesting observation that it, it, it's, it has shifted of, I think your, your, your campaign merchandise was something that you would, you would pass out and, and, and give to as many people. And, and it reflects kind of the shift that we've seen since the, you know, mid 20th century to people consuming politics as entertainment. Right? So you have the super fans and that's who, who the, the merchandise is, is being made for.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So it's just, it's, you, you have to be, you have to speak with a, with a consistency of message while also being versatile enough that you can speak to many different audiences on many different platforms at, at different times in the campaign.

Eric Wilson:

I've, I've done some work in, in Sweden and for their elections, there, there are more restrictions about where they can spend money and how much they can spend. But one of the areas, and I didn't realize actually how vintage this, this must be, they can give out Frisbee's bicycle seat covers sweatshirts. That that is a key part of campaigning for the political party. So there's just like, there are swag everywhere. So you mentioned some of the constraints in, in political design. How, how do Republican designs differ from democratic designs? What, what restrictions do they share? What's different?

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. I mean, I, I think generally and broadly you can say that Republican design and not, not necessarily surprising. Republican design tends to be more conservative, more traditional Democratic design tends to be more progressive, more cutting edge. And, you know, you're, you're speaking to two different audiences. You have these two different brands. So, you know, if, if you see, if you see a yard sign for a candidate that is in a, a RIF font, it's red, white, and blue. There's a, a flag stars and eagle on it. You can make an educated guest that's Republican. If you see a sign that's purple, orange, and turquoise, and it's a, a, a saner font, and it looks modern and contemporary, you can make an educated guest that that's a Democrat. But the kind of, by and large most design tends in politics tends to be San Serif.

Some data from the Center for American politics and design shows. 69 of candidates in 2020 used sans typeface. So it's, you know, there, there are kind of these general things that you can look for, but there's always exceptions for every rule. You know Bernie Sanders has a Sarah font. No one's gonna accuse him of being a conservative <laugh>. There's there's a, a candidate, I, I saw this, this is a really interesting name duke Buckner. He was a Republican running in South Carolina, and he was running against representative Clyburn. And he used this logo that is a black, green and red, the colors of the pan-African flag. And it's like, that's not something you're gonna see with a, a republican like Arizona. But when you're running against Clyburn in a district with a lot of black voters, as a Republican, you want a way, you, you want a way to communicate to, to your voters. And so it's just, you know, there, there are, there are some of these rules. But for every, for every rule, there's gonna be a candidate somewhere who breaks it. But, but, but you can, you can, you can just kind of generally see that the Republicans tend to be more conservative, and so you do have a lot more with their design. So you do have a lot more restrictions about how you visually communicate.

Eric Wilson:

What do you think drives that? Because I think there's kind of a chicken and egg problem on one hand, go back to, to 2020, right? Where you had some of the top design firms in the country were creating work probably at a very reduced rate for, for the democratic presidential contenders. We don't have that sort of affiliation on the right. Is that one reason? Or is it our voters are older, more conservative, looking for something more traditional. And so whatever's new, trendy in design isn't gonna fly.

Hunter Schwarz:

I, I would, I would say it's, it's more about speaking to your voters and, and wanting to have a conservative visual message. 'cause It's just, it, it, it's, by doing that you are reinforcing your message of, of conservative values. I do it, it is interesting thinking about the political orientation of the design world. And Democrats definitely have an edge today, but it, it hasn't always been that way. There was actually back in 52, 56 elections Republicans, the Eisenhower campaign was able to get a lot of support from big advertising agencies, and the Democrats had a harder time. So you, you do just because that's the way things are today, it hasn't necessarily always been that way. And yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting kind of how that works. And I'd be interested in, in how it changes and whether we'll see that continue to change. But yeah, definitely a lot more, a lot more, the design world is on the liberal side.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And so I call 'em campaign logos. I know designers would, might, might prefer the term wordmark since often the candidate's name is in there, but that's, that's the brand. But campaign logos are, are one of those things about politics where everyone has an opinion informed or otherwise. But what do you look at as an expert in, in a campaign logo to judge its effectiveness?

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, I, to me it's, is it congruent with the candidate and his or her campaign message? If you look at that logo and you're like, yep, that looks like him. Yep, that looks like her. Yeah. Like, it just like, like it, it, it, it, if it reinforces the candidate's message, that's, that's what's effective to me. I think that a lot of times in this space, logos are really, are really Rorschach tests. Like you, people can see what they, they want into 'em. And so I think one of the things I try to do is, you know, it I, I think criticism is more than just having an opinion and putting it out there. There's Washington Post critic at large Robin Gavan has this saying about that, that it's the good criticism is rooted in journalism. And so it's more than just having an opinion. You know, you can, and, and I think designers, you can look at logos and nitpick things like kerning and stuff, right? But you don't really think, like, most of this stuff is not for designers. You're designing for voters across the country who don't spend all day like looking at fonts like, like I do. So it's like, you really are, you know, the effectiveness to me is does it match the candidate and their message?

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And I, I look at it at logos from a totally different perspective than, than the branding I and messaging component. I think of it as like, okay, how is this gonna work as an icon? How, what's the favicon gonna look like on the website? How does it look against dark backgrounds? How is it gonna, you know, <laugh>, do they use too many colors? So when we print merchandise or do embroidery, is it gonna cost extra? Is it readable on a yard sign when someone's driving by? You know, those are the kinds of things that I'm looking for to judge whether, whether a logo is effective or not. And so it's hard for them to do all of those, those jobs at

Hunter Schwarz:

Once. Yeah. All the, these cases. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Wilson:

And I, I, you know, I, I think it is fair to say, even, even if you know, most, most political design doesn't stand up to, to, you know, scrutiny from, from design world, I, I still think we, we don't think enough about it, and we could spend more time on being intentional about it. I've, I've been involved in, in some logo processes that were basically non-existent, right? Some, you know, we put the candidate's name and, and it's in red, white, and blue. And, and then others where it's okay, we're gonna be thoughtful about it and, and, and maybe too, too cute about it. And there are things that, that people aren't gonna get. Yeah.

Hunter Schwarz:

There, there, there's this line you have to walk, I think <laugh>.

Eric Wilson:

And so let's, let's start with, with Joe Biden. Before we dig into the Republican side, what, what's his campaign up to on the, the design front?

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, so they, they updated the branding a little bit. I mean, the, to me, presidential reelection campaigns are almost the funnest to, to look at because you have a brand that's now been around long enough that people are familiar with it, but you're able to start playing with it a little bit. You're able to start adding some texture, some new elements. So it is interesting to watch what they do. And you know, the Biden campaign updated its logo. They made that, that, that e flag waving. So just like a small little touch that, you know, you see that, and you know that it's the 2024 campaign and that 2020. And then a lot of the elements I've seen so far, their campaign is they've in addition to the red, white and blue, they've introduced kind of this parchment color. There's a lot of handwriting elements, which I think is, you know, I, I feel like there's a lot you can do with that from a president running for reelection, you know kind of this, this this human touch to it. So yeah, it kind of feels like they've taken the brand and they've updated it and are, are just kind of offering this 2024 version of of the visual brand.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, I, I really like the handwriting elements, just because you've got this very old president who is not a digital native by any stretch of the imagination. And so to your earlier point of how, how do you connect the design with the candidate? And, and it's a, it's a digital first campaign in a lot of ways. And so having that handwriting is, is, is pretty cool. And I, I don't know if you have any of the, the backstory on it, but it, it sure does look like his handwriting.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. And you're able, I mean, you're able to do stuff. You, you communicate with donors that way. Just it, I, I think, I think when everything is digital, being able to put in an element that, that, that looks human done, I think there's a premium on that kind of the, the way design is heading. So yeah,

Eric Wilson:

You're listening to the Business of Politics Show. I'm speaking with Hunter Schwartz, author of Yellow on CK about political design and the 2024 race. Alright, hunter, let's dig into the Republican 2024 contests. What trends are you seeing among those candidates in terms of logos design and branding?

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, you know, my first reaction when, when I, when I compared the logos from 2024 to the Republican logos from 2016 was just how under branded and neutral the 2024 candidates seem. When you look back at the, at the 2016 campaign, there was a lot of campaigns were doing a lot of different stuff with their logos at the time. The Jeb logo Marco Robbie did the logo in all lowercase rand Paul had this logo that made a kind of a, a, a liberty torch out of the negative space in his name. You had a lot of different interesting things. And fast forward to 2024, and you just, you have a lot of candidates who are using sans serif logos. Kind of, some of it just looks kind of standard if you were ask an AI chat bot to make you a, a campaign logo about something like very just kind of neutral and, and under branded.

Obviously not, not all the candidates are like that, but I think it is interesting just because of the kind of primary that 2024 is you have this established branding from Trump that he updated it slightly, but he is, you know, he's sticking with that really well-known logo. And so I, you know, 2016 where that was an open primary, I think you see that in the design. You see, you see a lot of different possibilities and just 2024 is a different race. And that's, that's just kind of my impression looking, looking at all the design so far.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah, you definitely see this, this trend of, of, of whoever the most prominent figure in a political party is really setting the, the tone and the design for, for that party. So for example you know, in 2009, Bob McDonald won Virginia Governor kind of the, you know, first Republican victory post Obama, every candidate in the country wanted to have a Bob McDonald style logo. And, and that, that proliferated, we, we saw the same thing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she, she ran and, and won, came to prominence. There was the a o C slant and that color palette of the purple and yellow, we just kept seeing it because people were, were showing their affiliation. And I, you know, in, in the current Republican party, Donald Trump is a very important figure, and I think you see people wanting to align towards that. We saw a lot of Trump copycat logos, but you don't wanna stray too far from that, that vocabulary right now.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. And maybe that's part of what designers, the struggle they're, they're having with how do you, how do you compete against someone who's, who's leading in the primary, who has a well-established brand, and you don't, yeah, you don't wanna stray from it, but you don't wanna copy it. So where, where does that leave you, <laugh>?

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. So which Republican presidential campaign in, in your opinion, has the most effective logo right now?

Hunter Schwarz:

Well, there's, there's three that really stand out to me. I think Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson for their use of IFFs are very, like, you look at it and it's like, wow, that that really does stand out in a, in a world where San Serifs are the standard. And I, I've written about that and just how both of those candidates, the, their message is really this throwback conservatism that I think really aligns with their branding. It looks very Reagan era right. Yeah. That, that, that really, that those really stand out to me. And then Doug Bergham has a logo that I, I described it as, it looks like a, like a, a statewide, like a US Senate candidate logo in a swing state. Like, it, it, to me, it does read conservative, but it's also not standard conservative. Like I feel like it's, it's speaking to a really broad audience. So those were the three candidates who I think did something that, that, that's a little bit different from the rest of the field.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. The, in, in your piece about the Mike Pence, Sarahs and, and his logo, I really like the, the Facebook ad that you pulled for that. I mean, because it, it looked like it could have been from the, you know, 1972 Nixon reelection campaign. It, it had that, that feel and it, it was just like, really cool, good design. And I, I was like, oh, you know, like, it, it, it made me take notice. And, and so it's interesting that you, you've, you've identified that. And then yeah, the, the Bergham logo certainly stands out. And I think it's also worth, worth noting that those are also campaigns that are trying to get attention, right? And, and so the, then you can take a little bit more of a risk visually.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, definitely.

Eric Wilson:

Besides those, are there any logos that stand out as unique or innovative in terms of branding or design? Any, you know, maybe it's a, a subtle detail that, that you appreciate.

Hunter Schwarz:

The Suarez campaign is they, they kind of did a Trump style logo with the candidate's name inside the box, but they do it with this red to blue gradient, which is kind of fun. And you know, the Biden campaign really did a lot with gradients late in the 2020 campaign. But I don't know, like, I don't think gradients read as liberal. And so it's interesting to see how those pop up elsewhere. Say the Swar campaign is using those the DeSantis campaign on their website. They kinda have this gradient background. So it'll be interesting to see if that's something that gets play. But yeah, I mean, I just like, like the Christie logo's very similar to his previous logos. Just like, like I look at the Nikki Haley and Tim Scott logos and they're just kind of just kind of standard there. And they've done other stuff design-wise, but it just, in their logo, it's pretty standard.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And this is one of the harder conversations to have on a, on a campaign. 'cause You're, you're limited by time and, and money and, and resources. And I appreciate good design. I know a lot of listeners do as well. But figuring out what is the, the, I guess, cost benefit analysis of good design I, I, I is hard in, in political campaigns because, like you say, it, it's, it's one shot. You, you know, you don't get to go back to a focus group and try it again. You just have to start branding yourself from, from day one. I, I've always thought about, well, well, how could we, how could we measure that? What is the impact of good design? Because I, I, I have to believe that it, it has some impact, but I just don't know how big it's,

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. And I, I mean, there could be value to an under branded logo. Like, I don't necessarily think having the coolest logos always, like a logo doesn't win you an election. I think there are, there are races where being under branded is is to a candidate's benefit. And I just, I mean, my kind of thought when, when, when Haley announced her campaign, I just kind of, I, I looked at some of the polling data and there's a, there's a lot of voters that were unfamiliar with her. And so to me, I'm almost like, you know, maybe, maybe here she's doing an unbranded logo because she's introducing herself. Like a lot of people don't know who she is. And so if you're able to come out with an unbranded design you know, you're, you're able to introduce yourself and I, you know, maybe there's, there's not, there's not a cost to that. So, yeah, I, I think it, there's, there's all kind of factors in play in terms of like what the race is, who the candidate is what the style the style is of the time. And I think you could make arguments for a lot of different stuff. 'cause Yeah, I mean, you can, you could come out with a logo. The designers are like, oh my gosh, this

Eric Wilson:

Is the, yes, we love this.

Hunter Schwarz:

And it just falls flat with voters. Like, you're not designing for designers, you're designing for voters.

Eric Wilson:

I mean, I think that's, there, there are a couple other things happening too, which is, you know, we, we heard about it in a previous episode about creative on a, on a budget. Sometimes the, the lower production value stuff does better with, with voters because it reads as more authentic, right? So if you, if you look to polish to corporate, that that can actually harm your, your campaign. Another thing that I, I think might, again, it's, it's sort of like psychological and, and counting the angels on ahead of a needle, but what, what does that say about the campaign, right? If their branding isn't top-notch, is it because there's, there's an organizational issue. They have disagreements about what their messaging is, right? Can you diagnose other issues from, from the, the logo? It's an interesting question to consider. Anything else that's, that's jumping out at you in the political design space right now, obviously all eyes are on the, the 2024 presidential candidates, but we're starting to see some, some designs for this cycle.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. You know, I, I think with, with, with the polling now showing the likelihood of a a a Trump Biden rematch, you know, maybe there is, there is kind of like a, a stall in kind of new design trends. And so maybe we, you know, if, if the race ends up, if the presidential race doesn't end up giving us any new design tropes, like it might come from Congressional or house races you know, like you mentioned a o c, like if you're able to win a race and get nationwide attention your branding is a winning brand and other, other candidates wanna wanna tap into that. So yeah, we, we might see, we might see a lot more interesting design happen down ballot at the congressional level. And then I, I think also with these Republican logos, this is just the beginning and we'll see a, as they progress as Campaign to progress, they get more resources, they have more specific design needs. And so as we get closer to the primaries, I think we'll see to what extent these Republican brands develop for the primaries. And that'll be interesting to watch. And then, yeah, I, I, I think it'll be, it'll be fun to watch the Biden and Trump campaigns with these very well established brands. How do they play with those? How do they, how do they make those both familiar to voters and still fill of the moment and, and convince voters like I'm the guide to, to lead in 2024 and beyond?

Eric Wilson:

What, well, this is something we've, we've talked about before and jumps out to me is the ification of, of logos. So we've seen a number of members of, of Congress of the House who are, are making or trying to make the leap up to, to Senate. And I think in a, in a few cases, they've gone from having relatively interesting logos to, to something that was a little bit more boring and, and standard. So

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah, some of them, it felt like kind of a downgrade. It did not seem like they were, they were leveling up to like a, a, a bigger statewide race.

Eric Wilson:

And, and I wonder if that's just, again, you know, you're introducing yourself to a, a whole new audience. They're not your constituents. You don't have a track record. And, and so being under branded might be an be an asset there. It's, it's just fascinating to, to sort of see that that progression shifting outside of politics for a moment, what, what's a design trend related to branding that you're seeing in commercial or entertainment space that you hope makes the jump into politics or, or, or maybe you think will make the jump into politics?

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. Well, my two favorite brands right now are Burger King and Threads. I, I, burger King, they're, they're doing this, this throwback look. But, you know, and so maybe <laugh> the Pence and Hutchinson campaigns will wanna, will wanna keep an eye on this, but it's just like, it's like they're, they're able to do this old logo. They've updated a little bit. They have this really hearty RIF font, really fun colors. So I just, I look at what they're doing as a way to do throwback in a modern, fun, exciting, compelling, dynamic way. Yeah. Like, it doesn't have to be stodgy. And so yeah, I kind of look at that and I wonder if, if C'S become more popular, if, if Burger King's kind of a model for how to do that in a relevant way.

Eric Wilson:

Yeah. And I, I I, you know, there's an interesting challenge from a designer's perspective of yeah, you're, you're bringing back something that's old, but you've gotta make it new again. And you, you've gotta use it in these places that it didn't have to be used in the eighties and nineties. Yeah.

Hunter Schwarz:

Yeah. So it's an interesting challenge, but I think I, I think Burger King has done it, right, <laugh>, like, it's really, it's, it's fun to watch how they've, how they've built that brand.

Eric Wilson:

And then you mentioned Threads, the new social network from, from Instagram and, and Meta. Yeah,

Hunter Schwarz:

I just, the, the thing that, that I was really interested in by that was just how neutral it was. And it's just literally just black and white. And to me it kind of felt like they, on purpose, they kind of wanted to have this blank slate. 'cause Here's this new social network people trying to figure it out. What is the vibe? What is the tone? And so to me it ki I, I kind of like that they didn't really put a whole lot of branding, branding into it. They have their at logo, but the app is otherwise just kind of simple, black and white. And then with their branding, they kind of throw in that, that Instagram gradient sometimes tying in with the other app. So I was just really interested in that and, and I saw the value of of being under branded when you're launching something like that. So those are, yeah, those are the two corporate brands that I've really taken note of. And, you know, to the extent that those are things that, that end up in political design, we'll see. But

Eric Wilson:

The Threads branding again, that goes to the, the point of like, they're, they're able to be unbranded because they got to a hundred million users in, in like a week, right? There that there, there's something about their, their distribution that they were already behemoth that they, you know, it was almost like, oh, we gotta have a logo for something, you know, and, and so like, let's, let's put it together. I know there was more thought into it than that. But I do like the ribbons that they have in some of their branding that that's been pretty cool as well. And a little bit more designed. Yeah.

Hunter Schwarz:

We'll, we'll see if it stands the test of time, but

Eric Wilson:

<Laugh> well, my thanks to Hunter for a great conversation. Make sure you go subscribe to yellow.ck.com for the latest in politics and design. It's a must read for me every week. If this episode made you a little bit smarter, gave you something to think about, you know, all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague, you look smarter in the process. So it's a win-win for everybody. Remember to subscribe to The Business of Politics Show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can also sign up for email updates on our website at business of politics podcasts.com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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