There have been lots of diaries and theories about how the Democrats lost the election. Personally, I think the
recent statements from James Carville are dead-on accurate - you need a narrative to effectively communicate a message.
However, the visual communcation (graphic design) of that message is extremely important, and the DNC completely blew it in 2004.
That's right. The visuals that accompanied the Kerry campaign actually reflected the Bush criticisms about Kerry, effectively reinforcing the Republican narrative.
As we learned in 2000 with flawed ballot designs - design matters. Read on in the extended entry to see some examples of what I'm talking about.
Let's start by looking at the Kerry/Edwards basic graphic identity,
as seen here, and comparing it to the basic John Kerry & Democratic messages.
The basic Kerry messages talked about supporting the working class by opposing outsourcing and creating jobs. The campaign tried to identify with the low and middle economic classes by talking about tax relief for those groups, while raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Another basic message was that John Kerry was tough enough to take on America's enemies - evidenced by the Vietnam tie-ins in the convention and Kerry using extremely tough talk towards Al Qaeda and bin Laden.
Compare this with Bush's narrative about Kerry: he's weak on defense, he's weak on decision-making (the flip-flopper bit) and he's weak on tax-relief (the he voted to raise taxes 900 times bit). Bush also painting Kerry as the patrician, rich society guy from liberal Massachussetts.
Unfortunately, Kerry's campaign logo accurately reflected Bush's statements. The logo is rendered in Georgia, or a very similar serif font (serif fonts have adornments called serifs on the ends of letters and numbers). Serif fonts are far more elegant and, if you'll pardon the expression, patrician than sans-serif fonts. They generally lend an old-school, upper-crust feeling to text. Don't get me wrong, I love a good serif font, but it might have backfired in this case.
Also, look how beautifully rendered the flag is in the logo. It looks soft - like a real flag - but in this case, that realism might also have been a liability.
Kerry's text and graphics are good design: beautiful flag, elegant text. However, Beautiful and elegant don't reflect his campaign messages of strength and middle class values. It does reinforce the narrative that he's a rich, weak flip-flopper.
Bush however, had a fairly simple message: "Stick with me for strong, consistent leadership. I'm a regular guy." In general, Bush pushed the basic message: I'm strong, and he's weak.
And when you examine his graphic identity you can see how Bush's campaign logo reflects his narrative. It's a big, bold Helvetica Neue that is extended out to give it more weight. It even leans to the right. The flag is a simple, rugged looking graphic. Where else can you find simple, bold, left leaning graphics and text? Seriously, all the Bush logo is missing is Calvin peeing on a donkey.
So Bush's graphic identity looks tough. It looks like it could kick Kerry's identity's ass. And most importantly, it absolutely reflects his campaign message. It was pretty damn effective, it looked good, and Republicans stuck it everywhere.
As a Democrat, I always felt uninspired by seeing Kerry signs around the neighborhood. Now that I've really thought about it, I think it was the total lack of visual reinforcement of the campaign. However, "The Real Deal" gear looked tough, working class and reflected strong leadership. It looked like this giant stamp had laid the smackdown on a shirt.
Would the results have been different had the campaign used the stronger logo? Maybe - who can really say? I do believe it might have moved some swing voters, and energized more of the base.
Since Carville is calling for the development of a cohesive narrative, I submit that we better get a visual narrative that serves as a strong reinforcement, rather than a liability.
disclaimer: ProfessorX is a pre-tenure college professor deep in a red state. He is director of the University graphic design program, and tends to get preachy about this kind of thing.