![[Matter Header Twitter.png]] So why do we build campaign branding around them? ![[AlltheSameLogo.png]] Ready for a 4x8! And not much else. Yes names are important. They show up on the ballot. But voters don't have to spell names in the voting booth. They just need to *establish an associative quality with the name.* Preferably independent of political noise, and everybody else on the ballot. #### Do Logos Matter? *"Just get 'em done and out."* *"That's all artsy-fartsy stuff."* ^ Said every political operative the last sixty years, under time and budget pressure. As though people don't attach feelings or motivations to geometric shapes, lines, color palettes. ![[CrackerBarrel.png]] From The Wall Street Journal, on the financial impact of changing this particular collection of shapes and type sets: > *Last Tuesday, Cracker Barrel unveiled its new logo, describing it as a callback to the original with its barrel shape and word design. It replaced the chain’s long-running logo, sketched by a Nashville artist in 1977. By Wednesday, the backlash escalated. The next day, the company’s shares dropped 7%.* Ask Phil Knight or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods on their private jets if the Nike Swoosh creates emotion. **You know what this means, without the word in the middle:** ![[Blankpepsi.png]] **And you know this is all wrong, even though you can read it plainly:** ![[KamalaCoke.svg]] Yes, Coke and Pepsi are companies with billions in ad budgets and generations-worth of impressions - imperfect analogies to mid-ballot political campaigns. Stipulated. But - we have logos in politics for a reason. [[Voters are Functionally Illiterate|That reason is associative recall.]] Proper design still allows for scalability, extensibility and clarity - all at once, on any brand. Which ups impression value. Which is worth money on a tight budget. Not everyone is Coke and Pepsi. Which is why corporate brands invest a lot in logo design. (Of course, [[Bad creative requiring massive frequency is a profit-maximizing tactic]]) #### Visual consistency, visual differentiation **So much of what we make in political media is based on preconceived notions of what "political" material should look like.** But the tropes are so tired now people are conditioned to look away. It's one reason driving positive image ratings is so hard now. Our entire industry's brand is bundled together in a heap of dishonesty and [distrust](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx). A lifetime of bad negative ads will do that; and social [[Institutional weakening is more evident in politics with each passing year|trust]] is one [[social technology]] America has failed to advance in the last seventy five years. Put more simply: swing voters intuit "political" imagery and typography - even [[An Evolving Collection of Politicians Pointing at Jobs and Leadership| physical posture]]. And they know it the instant they see it, because every two years they see it over and over and over again. *Individual political brands must see themselves as born within this informational ecosystem; and must strain to break out of it.* [Seeing a political ad disclaimer is now a mental cue to shut your brain off and become more skeptical](https://escholarship.org/content/qt8fs0x868/qt8fs0x868_noSplash_04b9f27c9934c79effa9a8ddfcf28949.pdf). Which, of course, [[Voters don't read]]. ![[Political Disclaimer.png]] #### Make the Favicon First. Scalability is the most important thing in political logos. They need to go on a lot of stuff. And other people need to be able to use them. **If a clear derivative of the main typography doesn't fit in a browser tab as well as on the side of a barn, it's not good enough.** Color should be extensible, flexible - but the choices matter there, too. > [! Yardsign] Maybe Try it in Yellow... > ![[tryitinyellow.png]] The answer is certainly not red white and blue color schemata with flags and state shapes. None of those can live in voters' brains independent of all the rest of the political noise. Two actionable thoughts for practitioners as '26 looms: - We put B roll on our campaign websites for outside groups. How about a branding guide, too? Maybe lawyers would call it a test case, but we doubt the FEC has guidance on matching typefaces for allied outside groups. Worth a shot. - Someone - probably a former Navy SEAL dude who has killed some baddies in his day - needs to deploy hot pink yard signs in a ruby-red district. Think along those lines. Disrupt the patterns worn in our heads, and get someone's [[Private vs public attention|attention]].