Episode 84: The Politician’s Gaze

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional district last month, two designers writing in the Washington Post, described her campaign’s graphic identity — the logo, typography, and an iconic photograph of the candidate — as “actually good.”

Does good design matter for political campaigns? Or is “good” design elitist and therefore alienating?

Michael, who worked on the branding for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, says of Ocasio’s messaging:

It’s not so much about aesthetics, although I think the aesthetics are really great. It’s about consistency and forcefulness of message delivery. And that’s what they really had going for them here.

Also mentioned this week:

Aileen Kwun, Fast Company, How the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign got its powerful design
Brand New and Vox on Ocasio-Cortez
Susan Sontag, On Photography
Dave Eggers, New York Times, A Cultural Vacuum in Trump’s White House
John Carreyrou, Bad Blood
Steven Bach, Final Cut
Christopher Byron, The Fanciest Dive
Ivan Chermayeff: Mostly Early Covers at Katherine Small Gallery, Boston, through September 8, 2018
Mostly Early Covers catalog

Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Soundcloud.

Posted in: Arts + Culture, Politics, The Observatory

Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati, and has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1990. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

Jobs | November 14