Obama & Nazi Design
Posted on 20. Aug, 2009 by indolering in Design, Personal
I did my term paper for art history on design elements used in the political campaigns of past and present figures, including Bush, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and McCain. All the talk of Obama and Nazi design similarities gave me the impetus to put it up here.
I had to cut out about 50% of the content, but anyone interested in the comparison should check out Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. It’s an excellent book and my main source.
Anyway, here is a highlight,
The McCain campaign tried to concurrently project the image of both a strong leader and a rebellious maverick. This strategy made McCain an unconvincing strong father, whom would protect the nation better than Bush as a conservative democrat prone to the nuclear-family view of foreign policy would want. Whereas a republican with nurturant-parent views of foreign policy would require someone able to work with others- not a maverick whom is unable to work with those in his own party. Of McCain’s choice for a campaign font Art Chantry opined in a New York Times piece,
“Everything about this logo says you can buy a car from this man.” -Barlow & Highsmith, Boston Globe. McCain’s logo juxtaposed with McCann Motors in Fife WA.
“Optima is the ultimate noncommittal typeface. It’s a sans-serif typeface with the suggestion of false serifs. It’s also a serif typeface without serifs. Either way, it’s a half-truth. Optima is the best typeface for appeal to all viewers and projecting sophistication without really having sophistication.”
How much of this statement was just subconscious reprocessing of the author’s political views in the form of a design critique is debatable. However, the parallels are striking: the McCain campaign chose a font trying to be both strong and sophisticated while McCain was rushing to embrace the evangelical right-wing while simultaneously trying to both co-opt Obama’s change message and adopt a feminist advocacy angle.
Oh, and the whole paper is BY-SA, so it’s compatible with Wikipedia.
Unchanging: the commonalities of successful political design
Enjoy : )
