Designing 2020, Part 1: The candidates you haven’t heard of
If the 2016 presidential campaign was decided by which candidate had the best logo, Martin O’Malley would be President right now. Instead you’re wondering, “who is Martin O’Malley and why is Anthony talking about him?” (For the record, he’s the guy you don’t recognize in this picture).
In my humble opinion, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley had the best logo among all 2016 presidential candidates, even though he got less than 1% in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses and kind of went away forever after that. But there really wasn’t a lot of competition for “best 2016 logo”. I mean, look at these things. In a field full of wannabe Obamas, bad American flags and inexplicable exclamation points, it really wasn’t difficult to come out on top.
So, with an incumbent President — and thereby a field of candidates exclusicely from one party— is the class of 2020 presidential logos better than 2016? I ventured to find out.
I’m dividing this into three categories: “People you haven’t heard of,” (the version of this story you’re reading right now) “People you might have heard of,” and “People you’ve heard of.” In each category, I’ll rank each candidate’s logo from one to five O’Malleys, with one being the worst score and five being the best. I’m limiting the candidates to my (somewhat arbitrary) personal definition: someone who has held a high office, or has run for a high office as a legitimate candidate, and the candidates are organized into their respective categories by my own equally arbitrary and highly subjective opinion.
And who am I, you might be asking? I’m a writer with Uni-Watch.com, a website devoted to sports design. So I’m kind of an expert on this stuff (not really).
Sound good? Let’s go!
Michael Bennet, Senator from Colorado
My first thought is that it’s not a presidential campaign logo, it’s a brand of organic butter I’d buy at Whole Foods. But it’s not bad — I like the font on Bennet’s name, though he did go with somewhat generic Gotham for the “for America” subtitle (and I’ll go into more detail as to why I dislike it further down in John Hickenlooper’s section). And I’m not quite sure why he arched his name if he’s also surrounding it with a box. It makes the B and T look too big, but perhaps that’s intentional, to emphasize that he spells his name differently (it should be noted that this Michael Bennet is not the NFL’s Michael Bennett, who is an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders). All in all, I don’t dislike it, I just find it generic and somewhat confusing in an annoying but ultimately inoffensive way. A bit like Michael Bennet himself. Rating: 3 O’Malleys.
Steve Bullock, Governor of Montana
Painfully, awfully, astoundingly generic. From the stereotypically “rugged” serif font to the red, white and blue stripes underneath, to the italicized sans-serif “2020,” all of this is just the most generic looking presidential logo I’ve seen for 2020.
Except parts of it are worse than generic. The ‘c’ is ugly as hell, and was honestly the very first thing I noticed about the logo. The kerning is weird between the second ‘L’ and the ‘O’. The italicized “2020” looks like something out of 2006 and the kerning is weird between the first ‘0’ and second ‘2’ too! Just stunningly bad, one of the worst of 2020. Rating: 1 O’Malley.
Julián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas
I like how the acute accent is a lighter blue and breaks through the border, but I’m not sure if I dig the font — I like the N, but I don’t like the J, C or S. Highlighting his name’s accent mark is surely a demographic move — like he’s saying “I’m the Latino candidate”. But it’s also the only thing going on here, and the accent mark honestly seems a little big compared to his name. Like, it doesn’t seem organic to the logo, it seems intentionally added for maximum effect. And I’m not commenting on the color difference— I actually like the splash of color there — I’m talking about the size. It’s just so big.
Overall, I think it’s a fine enough mark, it just lacks a little panache and excitement, and is crippled by a poor font choice. Rating: 2.5 O’Malleys.
John Delaney, former Congressman from Maryland
John Delaney was a Congressman for Maryland’s 6th district from 2012 to 2018, and first announced his presidential campaign in July 2017. Since then, he’s basically lived in Iowa, where he’s gained no traction, and right now he’s basically bribing people to donate $1 to him to try to get him into the debates.
It’s clear Delaney’s trying to get an Obama vibe going with his “D” glyph, and it’s certainly better than the vomiting Pac-Man glyph on his original logo, but it’s still feels like Delaney’s trying too hard. There’s something off with the kerning on his name, and the all caps “FOR PRESIDENT” seems overly aggressive compared to the more friendly type for his name. All in all, it isn’t a bad logo, but it feels very safe and staid. Rating: 2.5 O’Malleys.
John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Colorado
What is it with boring Colorado white moderate dudes and running for president? Anyway, I hate that I like this. The moderate former Governor of Colorado, once rumored to be the running mate of a potential independent John Kasich campaign, Hickenlooper uses purple to evoke bipartisanship, which I could take or leave. The purple and light blue don’t really go together.
No, what I love is the 13 diagonal stripes to form a Rocky Mountain range. And therein lies a double meaning for the purple: the Colorado Rockies are purple. The mountains don’t just touch upon his home state, either; before entering business and politics, Hickenlooper was a geologist.
All of this is spectacular, which brings me to what I dislike the most: the font. Gotham has become sort of the go-too font for political campaigns in the Democratic Party ever since Barack Obama used it extensively in the 2008 election — in fact, his fellow Coloradan uses it in his logo, albeit to a lesser extent than Hickenooper does here. With how good the rest of his logo is, I think Hickenlooper could’ve done better. But it’s not enough to totally diminish it in my eyes. Rating: 4 O’Malleys.
Wayne Messam, Mayor of Miramar, Florida
Okay, politics junkies, here’s someone you might actually have not heard of before. Wayne Messam is the mayor of Miramar, Florida, which is a suburb of Miami. And…that’s it! Now he’s running for President! No one knows who he is! If Pete Buttigieg could do it, why not this guy!?
There’s no way Wayne Messam is on a first name-basis with voters in Miramar, Florida, let alone the United States of America. Very rarely can someone with little national profile pull off using their first name exclusively on a campaign logo — it’s basically only Bernie Sanders, who had little national profile prior to his 2016 campaign. And Bernie had an actually decent logo, not this weird network-TV-daytime-talk-show thing Messam has going on here. It’s in Gotham, which I’ve already established I do not like, it has a slight gradient, which is a no-go, and there’s nothing else going on. There’s no year, no last name, no website, no Twitter handle, no slogan. It’s like he literally got his nephew to do it for him the day before he announced his long-shot bid. Rating: 1 O’Malley.
Seth Moulton, Congressman from Massachusetts
So it appears many of the lesser-known candidates are going the “call me by my first name” route. Interesting. Moulton also appears to have taken Hillary’s arrow and co-opted it for his logo, which is a…bold move, considering that many design critics felt Hillary’s logo was not great, to say the least. Perhaps that’s why he’s relegated it to a secondary design element behind his name, obscured within a star.
Let’s get to the real star of the shitshow, though. The fonts. I hate the fonts. Gotham makes a return again, for “MOULTON”. But whatever font that Moulton got for his first name is orders of magnitude worse than Gotham. It’s too stretched out and tall, and doesn’t convey experience, youth, strength, anything. It looks like it came default with Google Docs. Abysmal. And there’s inexplicably a third font, for the weirdly split apart “20 20”! The less fonts the better. Rating: 1.5 O’Malleys.
Tim Ryan, Congressman from Ohio
The leader of the hilariously failed coup d’état against Nancy Pelosi and guy who likes yoga Tim Ryan is running for President, because if you’re a mediocre white guy, why not try to fail upwards?
Tim Ryan’s logo is like Cory Booker’s logo (he’s coming in a future installment), but worse because at least Cory’s got a unique font going on. Nothing like throwing a generic sans-serif on some red and blue and calling it a day, right? The kerning seems off, too. The “N” in Ryan is just kind of floating out there, as if the designer overcorrected to try to not to let the word appear as “RY AN”. Now it just looks like “RYA N”. Much better, I guess. But even still, there’s too much negative space between the R and the Y. It’s almost as if this font in all caps sucks for a name with a Y in it! And since all that’s going on is the font, it’s all I have to rate. Rating: 1 O’Malley.
Joe Sestak, former Congressman from Pennsylvania
In lists like this, we’d normally save the worst for last.
But because I’ve arbitrarily decided that Sestak is a candidate you haven’t heard of (and let’s be real — had you heard of Joe Sestak before this article?) and I’ve arbitrarily decided to rank candidates in alphabetical order, Joe Sestak is here in the middle of the first entry.
But if this listicle was ranked “best logo to worst logo,” it’s not question where Joe Sestak would end up. Dead last.
This is one of the worst political logos I’ve ever seen, on several levels. No one knows who Joe Sestak is, so going with only his first name on the logo is a bold (read: stupid) move. His use of his Navy rank (Admiral, in case that wasn't clear) in all caps without punctuation makes it look at first glance like “ADAM JOE”, which is terrible because Adam isn’t even his middle name. The font used is probably supposed to evoke the font used on Naval watercraft, but it looks like shit, and the vertical arching makes it look even shittier.
The globe is cliche, and not a strong enough mark to hold this logo. Worse, it clashes with his quasi-nationalistic slogan, “Accountability to America”. It’s also far too detailed.
But the single worst part of this logo is the shape. It’s shaped like an eyeball. Which is stupid and weird and kind of creepy and entirely inexplicable. Why is the Earth the iris and pupil? Why is there writing below and above the eye? Why is it an eye!?
Some logos are boring, some logos are good, and some logos are mind-numbingly awful. This is the last one. There is nothing redeeming about it. Rating: 0 O’Malleys.
Eric Swalwell, Congressman from California
Eric’s got this going for him: it looks the logo of a presidential campaign on a mediocre network TV drama. And considering Eric Swalwell has the backstory, policies and look of a presidential candidate on a mediocre network TV drama, it fits!
The blue name next to the red stripes is supposed to evoke an American flag, I guess. And, unlike the other four random white guy congressmen running, I do actually like the font. I like what’s going on with the R, I like how it kind of looks like the name on a high school football jersey or the identification letters on the hull of an aircraft carrier, I like that it’s unique and not Gotham or some other plain-looking sans-serif. I guess I’ll just take what I can get in that regard.
It’s not great, not by any means, but the last four entries before this one were the four worst O’Malley Ratings I’ve given in this part of the project (don’t worry, there are some truly abysmal logos coming in Parts 2 and 3). Maybe that’s coloring my judgement on this one. Rating: 3 O’Malleys.
Marianne Williamson, “Spiritual Teacher” from California
When I started writing this piece, I wasn’t gonna include Marianne Williamson. After all, she’s a nobody, and kind of a crank. But she’s gotten several prominent Democrats to join her campaign in advising capacity (including Paul Hodes, who used to be a congressman from New Hampshire), appears to be making waves among the Extremely Online Weirdo contingent, and actually qualified for the goddamn debate. So here she is.
There really isn’t a whole hell of a lot to say about this; her first name is in a bold yet attractive font and she’s clearly trying to do something cool and unique with the stacked “2020” with filled-in zeroes. But, honestly, I’m a little disappointed. I mean, she got David Downton to design some of her campaign merch. She could’ve gotten a logo with more…pizzazz. I expect my no-hope candidates to do something interesting with their visual presentation. Take a pahe out of Sestak’s book, Marianne. Rating: 2.5 O’Malleys.
