How to brand... a presidential candidate (slide show). guardian.co.uk.
I came across the above slide show a few months ago and loved it at first sight! Perhaps more so since being a designer first, and secondly a communicator, it was fascinating to see how the imagery we all had started taking for granted had actually been pieced together.
The visuals used had created a sophisticated and highly effective brand marketing strategy. Nothing had been left to chance. I’ll go over the iconography and building of brand Obama briefly in this post, but do click on the slide show (it is 11 slides long) and see how a successful president candidate was branded.
For starters, the halo the logo forms when placed behind Obama’s head uses trick imagery to imbue Obama with a sense of divinity and simultaneously trigger specific emotions, namely admiration and respect, in the viewer.
Obama also used a range of below the line paraphernalia often associated with corporate branding – lapel pins, stickers, novelty merchandise, you name it. But that’s not all. Obama’s staff hand painted banners at rallies as an expression of grassroots participation and their hopes.
Now this is interesting. The colour scheme of red, white and blue signifying the sun rising over a ploughed field is actually a symbol for change, and a new dawn in America (the red stripes in the field represent the American flag).
And finally the typography or the typeface used. Obama chose Gotham. Not just a random choice again. Gotham is very elegant and simple, but more importantly has associations with American vernacular traditions. In comparison McCain used Optima which was used to engrave the names of the veterans in the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC. Not exactly happy memories!
A heady mix of colours and symbols, grassroots appeal and big media know-how, and Barack Obama managed to win the Advertising Age’s Marketer of the Year Award for 2008. This was with stiff competition from Nike, Coors, Apple, and Procter & Gamble Co.
So next time, all you designers, as you toil away in front of your computers using InDesign, PhotoShop or CorelDraw, please remember Obama. It can make or break your campaigns. EnjoyJ
