Hi ho, hi ho! As Iowa voters file into smelly high school gymnasiums to decide our political future as if they were better than us, I figured it was probably time for the rest of us to get together, as we’ve done on this site for more than 10 years, to pass judgment on the logos these candidates use on yard signs and T-shirts to persuade patriotic but undecided voters to join their cause.
One quick note: Photobucket, the site I used for most of the past decade to host images I use on DK, has gone completely over to the dark side and started blurring the images that they host, which is pretty funny considering that’s the only reason Photobucket exists. I’m working on getting all of these graphics hosted locally here, but it’s going to take some time. In the meantime, remember that you can see the unblurred images by right-clicking and selecting “View Image”. Also, fuck Photobucket. They fully deserve their F rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Starting us off with the best logo of the year, according to me:
As is usually the case, the best logo this year is so far ahead it’s not even funny. Let’s address the elephant in the room first: Pete Buttigieg’s logo absolutely looks like the logo of a minor league baseball team, and I have no problem with that at all. The campaign identity of the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana transports us to an idyllic Midwestern college town, as we fire up the Weber grill in the stadium parking lot and debate the issues of the day over juicy Oscar Meyer wieners and Bud Lights before filing in to the stadium to blow a lazy summer evening watching the South Bend Cubs battle the Fort Wayne TinCaps. As we look ahead to the most terrifying presidential election of my lifetime, Mayor Pete’s logo reminds us of what we have… and of what, he believes, America should be.
I’ve written in the past about campaigns that lead with the candidate’s first name. Typically this happens with candidates who have unusual, memorable first names, like RUDY in 2008, Newt Gingrich in 2012, and Carly Fiorina in 2016. This time, though, we have a candidate that goes by his extremely common first name in preference to his surpassingly unusual last name. This is hardly surprising: whereas “Buttigieg” looks like a cross between a dirty joke and a typographical error, we all know a Pete; he’s the neighbor who loves to talk sports and who’ll always loan you his lawnmower if you need it. Mayor Pete’s logo makes him the regular (white) guy you’ve always loved, without asking you to decide how you feel about the Maltese-American community. Bonus points for making the best use of the pleasing symmetry of “2020” that I’ve seen this year, and for providing high-resolution graphics for his supporters to use on social media, which is literally the least step that any candidate could take at this time in history and yet which almost no candidates actually do. Grade: A+
After his uninspiring 1988 and 2008 campaign logos, Joe Biden took a lesson from his former boss Barack Obama and finally came out with a logo worth writing home about. Biden’s 2020 logo is a bold mark that obeys the First Law of Campaign Logos (serif for incumbents, sans-serif for challengers) and gives us a flag device in the form of the letter E. There’s also a “JOE” version of this logo that does the same thing, which I have to commend for being flexible without being an obvious kludge. The children who infest Twitter like lice have been busy little bees criticizing this logo, but those criticisms are all dumb, as are the people who made them. Seriously, kids, take some graphic design courses. I’m not kidding. Stop looking for reasons to hate a high-quality logo. You’re just wrong, period. I bet you think Bernie Sanders has a good logo. You do, don’t you? Idiots. Grade: B-
Michael Bloomberg’s logo presents us with what should be, in a timeline that hadn’t gone completely crazy, a unique problem. As with Mayor Pete, “Mike” Bloomberg sports an all-American (i.e., white) first name that’s so common as to be wholly forgettable, and would not ordinarily be featured in a campaign logo without a good reason. Unlike Mayor Pete, though, Mike’s last name happens to be one of the most recognizable brands in America, entirely due to decades of hard work on the candidate’s part. If Michael Bloomberg were, for example, a crooked real estate developer with no significant assets other than his name, he would surely come forward with a campaign logo that is so similar to his company’s logo as to be wholly identical for all practical purposes, the better to improperly conflate the two. Bizarrely, however, Bloomberg seems to place value on the integrity of the US electoral system, at least to the point where he seems embarrassed to come out with a logo that would unfairly play on the value of his last name (a value, I feel I must repeat, he built himself and did not inherit from his father Fred). As a result, we get “Mike.” To his credit, he does what he can with it, although the contrasting colors on “2020” is a waste of what should be a slam dunk. Because we’re rating on aesthetics alone, I must consider only its unexceptional qualities rather than the metanarrative that largely made it necessary. Grade: C+
I've long had an affection for the name Amy, which was one of the most popular names given to newborn girls in the US in the early 1970s, when I was born, and which therefore ended up being attached to a disproportionately large number of targets of my romantic affection during my sadly departed youth. Amy Klobuchar was born in 1960, which puts her ahead of the curve as far as Amys go, but seeing "Amy" front and center on a campaign sign still gives me a nice contented feeling. Although it violates the First Law, I appreciate the gentle sans-serif of the main logo, as well as its contrast with the sans-serif of “AMERICA,” which is either Barack Obama’s Gotham or as close to it as makes no difference. I also give points for the gutsy use of green, which has the temerity to buck the stultifying unwritten red-and-blue rule that most campaigns feel they must follow. The medium green of “Amy” meshes with the baby blue of “America” for a rare and refreshing effect.
Unfortunately, as I’m putting this diary together I find I must deduct half a grade for this bizarre mishap, which has somehow resulted in the word “America” being left off of the logo on the front page of Sen. Klobuchar's campaign website. Go check it right now; it's probably still like that.
...But wait! Is it possible that this is intentional? “Amy for __________” …is this site saying that Amy is for all of us? Are we supposed to fill in the blank? “Amy is for you, laid off autoworker in the upper Midwest wondering where you’ll come up with your next mortgage payment!” “Amy is for you, Hispanic college senior in New Mexico graduating into an uncertain job market with crippling student loans!” “Amy is for you, senior in North Carolina with anxiety about the future of Social Security and Medicare!” Is it possible??
...no. No way. Be reasonable. This is just a fuckup. Grade: C+
Did you forget that Deval Patrick is running for President? I certainly did, although he gives it the ol’ college try with one of the less horrible logos I’ve seen this cycle, sporting the same green-and-baby-blue combo that Amy Klobuchar is using. I like the general tableau, but am hard pressed to say anything else about it. Like Gov. Patrick himself, it’s just sort of there. Grade: C+
“But phenry,” you are saying, “this is just Mayor Pete’s logo without the things that make it good!” And you’re absolutely right about that. Michael Bennet, another candidate I’d forgotten was running, declared his candidacy just two weeks after Pete Buttigieg, so I’m going to do him the courtesy of assuming that this logo was developed independently of Mayor Pete’s classic mark. But it’s hard to overcome the similarities. Both are set in a modern sans-serif; both use the same groovy curved baseline; both are hard to imagine being used in any campaign before the 2010s. If Mayor Pete weren’t running this year, I’d surely give this logo at least a full grade higher. Unfortunately for the senior senator from Colorado, he is. Grade: C
Before he threw his hat into the ring, Tom Steyer, a hedge fund zillionaire, spent years saturating CNN and MSNBC with commercials for his cause NeedToImpeach.com As disgusted as I am with the post-Citizens United World, in which every political ad advertises itself as being paid for by People for More Good Things and Fewer Bad Things, which is principally funded by the More Good Things PAC, which (it will never tell you) is actually a front for ExxonMobil and Chevron, I always appreciated the NeedToImpeach ads for their simple unadorned tagline: “Paid for by Tom Steyer.” If I must live in a world where my affections are bought, I figured, best that I at least know who’s buying me.
So now here we are, and Tom Steyer is running for president. I appreciate what he’s done for us thus far, but—and here we go back to the issue with Pete and Mike—“Tom” could mean anything from my old high school buddy to my ex-boss who laid me off 25 years ago. What’s wrong with “Steyer”? It’s a perfectly serviceable name, and—as much as I hate to bring this up—it doesn’t read as explicitly Jewish in a way that would turn certain informationally deprived individuals off to a billionaire. There’s nothing here that would necessitate the use of a generic white-bread first name. I grudgingly like what Steyer’s done with “2020,” as well as the unusual orange color he’s used, although that’s just because I really like the color orange. Grade: C
Ho hum. If Bernie Sanders is going to use exactly the same logo as last time, I’m certainly not going to waste my time saying anything about it, other than to point to my 2016 review. Half a grade off for lack of originality. Grade: C
Ohhh, it hurts having to do this. Elizabeth Warren is such a rockstar to me, going back years before she ever thought to run for Senate. If I’m being ruthlessly neutral, though, this logo just doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Hats off for the peppy font, which appears to be a very slight variation on Brandon Grotesque Condensed Black or something super similar, but there’s really nothing memorable here. Grade: C
Given recent polling that suggests that 42 percent of Andrew Yang backers wouldn't support another Democrat if Yang doesn't get the nomination, I don't see why I owe him or his unhinged supporters the time of day. But that's not why we're here, dammit! We’re here to pass unbiased aesthetic judgment on the candidate’s visual identity. And on that front, Andrew Yang comes up wanting by a long shot. For one thing, what the hell is that striped thingy in the Y? Is it supposed to suggest an American flag? No American flag I’ve ever seen has blue and red stripes, Andy! Why would I ever remember part of this? Why would I ever wear a shirt with this shameful logo on it? The answer, of course, is that I wouldn’t. Not now, not ever, no matter who you are.
Also: Yang’s supporters on Twitter—God, they're irritating—use a blue baseball cap emoji to signify their support. I don’t know why, and I don’t want to know why, so don’t tell me. But it seems pretty dumb that Yang wouldn’t want to take advantage of that fact in his campaign logo. Just another nail in the coffin of this sad thing. Grade: C-
I just don’t understand Tulsi Gabbard’s logo at all. Why the bizarre rounded corners at the bottom left and bottom right? I get that you’d want to lead with an unusual name like “Tulsi,” but why are you not doing anything with it? Is there an embedded secret message for Bashar el-Assad here that we’re not supposed to pick up on? Whatever the answer is, I’m not moved. Grade: D
So that, for what it’s worth, is what I got for ya this time. Please check in again this summer for my take on the general election logos between the pro-Russian traitor and whoever we run against him. Toodles!