Designing 2020, Part 2: The candidates you may have heard of
Welcome to Part 2 of Designing 2020. You can read Part 1 here.
We’ve reached Round 2 of our rundown of the logos of the 23 Democrats running for President of the United States (as of this writing). We’re moving on to our second tier of candidates, selected entirely subjectively by me: candidates whom you may have head of, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t.
Let’s get started.
Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
It’s somewhat unfair for me to put Mayor Buttigieg in the “people you may have heard of” category, because he’s sort of become a star over the past few months, even getting a Time cover. But this is the shortest section, so I had to pad it out somehow. Maybe I could’ve demoted Cory Booker or Beto O’Rourke from the next article, but…I didn’t. I picked Pete. Because Pete has a great logo!
It’s got folksy charm, works well on a wide variety of backgrounds, has great fonts, and is dynamic as hell. It’s perfect. I’m not sure I like the total absence of the last name on the logo, but when your last name is “Buttigieg,” I kinda understand it.
Best of all, Buttigieg (or his team, whatever) care enough about the aesthetic presentation of the campaign that there’s even a section of the website devoted to design, where you can download the campaign’s official logos on a wide variety of color pallets, as well as find the logo the design team made for every state. Unfortunately, many of the state logos are very similar to each other (look at Rhode Island and Kentucky, for example). It’s a nice thought, but didn’t exactly work out quite the way the artists and Buttigieg planned. It’s doubly disappointing that many of the logos came from artists who did not live in the states they were designing.
Fortunately, that doesn't have anything to do with Buttigieg’s actual logo, which is still fantastic, and the single best among the Democratic candidates of 2020. Rating: 5 O’Malleys.
Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City
My first impression is that it’s very …municipal. Like, this is the kind of “logo” I’d expect to see for a candidate for Mayor of my city, or any city. And the reason I put “logo” in scare quotes is because it looks primarily designed to be a lawn sign, not a logotype the way we think of them, and the way the other candidates (like Pete Buttigieg) seem to be.
As a side note, it is funny that Pete Buttigieg, who is the mayor of a much, much smaller city, is not only polling better than de Blasio, but seems to also care more about graphic design than de Blasio.
Anyway, the actual logo is god awful. The green is too puke-y. I dig the font, but I don’t dig that the letters go beneath the end of the blue into the green (most noticeable on the ‘s’ and ‘o’, but it’s there on every letter). And it’s so…bland. Boring. Staid. There’s nothing going on. Like the logo of a candidate for Mayor. Rating: 1.5 O’Malleys.
Tulsi Gabbard, Congresswoman from Hawaii
Oh, I hate how much I like this. I should hate the gradient sunrise, but it’s gorgeous. It evokes light breaking through the darkness, and it practically radiates off my computer screen. I’m not sure why the T and I are curved at the bottom (probably so that the “T” can be used as a social media avatar), but it doesn’t detract from the overall look and feel of the logo. It just works. It would be interesting to see if the font could be used for things other than her name, because right now I think it lacks versatility (and the black version that the campaign sometimes uses isn’t nearly as good). But overall, a triumph. Rating: 4.5 O’Malleys.
Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator from New York
The use of pink speaks volumes in Kirsten Gillibrand’s logo. During her time in the Senate and on the campaign trail, Gillibrand has made attempts to bring to the forefront the issue of sexual harassment and assault in branches of the federal government, and has played a major role in women-led anti-Trump protests. I do like the idea of using nontraditional colors in a political campaign logo. I dig the font, which is unique and modern-looking, and I also dig the overlap motif between ‘Gillibrand’ and ‘2020’.
It feel like it lacks something, though. Do something with the G! Give us your first name, so we don’t misspell it as “Kristen”! Even still, it’s far from the worst of 2020. Rating: 3.5 O’Malleys.
Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska
Who is Mike Gravel, you ask? The left-wing firebrand the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record at the height of the Watergate Scandal. He has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, peace, and marijuana legalization for more than 50 years. He is 88 years old and hasn’t been in office since 1981 after losing a Democratic primary.
So, this is all fundamentally unserious. Gravel’s — and the teens’ — stated goal was to reach the Democratic debates, which they have failed to do as they reached neither the polling threshold nor the donor threshold. Turns out there’s more to campaigning than just tweeting!
Regardless, the logo for this “campaign” is good. One of the better ones, actually. I like the colors and I like the font. It’s simple, straightforward, and visually appealing. Not much more I can ask for. I guess the kids are alright. Rating: 3.5 O’Malleys.
Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington
Oh boy, where to start. Firstly, I don’t like the font because it makes the ‘S’ look out of place. Secondly, the ‘S’ goes too far down onto the red line beneath his name. The slogan looks like an afterthought, and it looks like they used an MS Word default font for it. Those were the first three things I noticed.
I kinda get where Inslee’s coming from with the green-and-blue circle, as he’s focusing his campaign on environmentalism and climate change, and the circle kinda-sorta evokes the planet, so even though I’m a living and breathing human being and thereby must hate all non-ironic uses of gradients, I’m willing to forgive it.
But the entire thing just doesn’t sit well with me for a 2020 campaign logo. It’s boring and forgettable, making me think of a 2006 campaign for Governor rather than a 2020 campaign for President. Other terms that came to mind looking at this: insurance company, late-90s blank VHS tapes, personal injury law firm. It’s better with the colors inverted, but still.
Inslee’s at least has the best logo with a good at all, Jay. Rating: 1.5 O’Malleys.
Amy Klobuchar, Senator from Minnesota
When your last name is “Klobuchar” it’s understandable you’d go with your first name in your campaign logo. And I like it. I really like the kind of folksy serif font, though the kerning between the “m” and “y” could be a little better. I like the forest green (which has a Minnesota heritage in political logos) and bright blue. The sans-serif “America” is just different enough to draw attention without distracting from her name, and (more importantly) isn’t Gotham. The logo’s also proven to be highly versatile, working on a wide variety of backgrounds and colors. One of the best of 2020, and I wish more candidates went with serif fonts. Rating: 4 O’Malleys.
Andrew Yang, entrepreneur from New York
Running on an unapologetically progressive platform including having the federal government give $1,000 monthly to every American, Andrew Yang is hoping his skills in the tech world which made him extremely rich will work in a crowded presidential primary. Think Donald Trump circa 2015, except opposite in terms of policy and fame.
And I like the logo! The italics are a way of seeming like a forward-looking candidate, and the red-and-white striped crossbar on the Y works by itself as a glyph. The font could be more unique, but that’s just me grouching.
The one issue I have is that the red-and-white stripe turns to blue-and-white as it wraps around, which doesn’t make any sense. It’s a problem the Texas Rangers’ flag logo also has. It’s enough for me to knock it down one half O’Malley. Rating: 3.5 O’Malleys.