After a gruelling election campaign for everyone involved over November and December, the Labour party came out in a rather miserable state. It was their worst performance in an election since the war. Because of this their leader Jeremy Corbyn stepped down as the Labour party leader. Since then various Labour MPs have thrown their hat into the ring to become the next Labour leader. Interestingly each candidate has gone a very old school root and created logos for their election campaigns. For a bit of fun, I’ve looked at each logo and ranked them from worst to best in regards to their design and style.
There are currently 6 contenders, but as Clive Lewis has dropped the logo from his Twitter avatar, I have a feeling he might have thrown in the towel. We will go from the worst to the best. These are just my opinions based on my logo design experience, take them with a pinch of salt.
#6 Lisa Nandy
It was hard deciding the worst out the six, so I’d say the worst two were pretty close. Lisa Nandy’s design would look better as the title of an online newspaper header than on a political placard. The serif font is nice with the two weights providing two different bits of information. Strangely the second line, which is thinner, is actually larger than the name of the candidate. Surely the name is more important? There is very little flair involved, just a nice choice of font on a red background. Not much more to say.
#5 Emily Thornbury
Again we have another plain text offering. A single sans serif font was used for Emily Thornbury’s logo. Out of all the candidates, this design is the only one where the colour red was not the main colour. At least on this one the text hierarchy was done correctly. The main message is the first thing you read, with the secondary message underneath. The extra bold text also adds an extra layer to the overall message. I’m not sure this would quite work as a logo because the width would prevent it fitting onto most conventional places it would be shown. Again a fairly uninspired attempt, but gets the point across with a more modern feel.
#4 Sir Keir Starmer
In fourth we see one of the front runners in the actual competition, but that would probably have happened without this logo. Kier’s campaign design lacks any real interest or definition. Much like Emily’s effort the design is a tad too long and would be better if tightened up. I like the font choice. The capitalised name and all caps tagline separate the two lines. The darker red of the tagline makes it harder to read from a distance. Overall, a good attempt at a design with a modern typeset.
#3 Clive Lewis
Clive Lewis’ design is the first we see with an extra element added to it, albeit a red box. Another thick sans serif has been chosen. It gives impact and power to the design and is also very easy to read close up or at a distance. The design is simple, but effective. It looks a lot more in keeping with the style of design politicians will use in their campaigns. Bold, strong, and straight to the point; Clive’s design could easily be used on all sorts of material. However, its also a bit generic and would not be memorable to the average person who would come across it.
#2 Rebecca Long-Bailey
The second best design comes from Corbyn’s favourite to replace him, Rebecca Long-Bailey. Again the font chosen is a modern looking sans serif font. I feel like most of the candidates have taken this route to make themselves look modern and forward thinking. The text is italicised also giving the idea of looking forward. We can see two arrows that border the text; another nod towards Rebecca’s aspirations to move the party into the future. As with the other designs, the main colour is red with the text white. The red border might be a big thick around the text, with a slightly odd extra bit on the top right corner. The “L” of the Long-Bailey gets lost in the arrow border and almost makes the text say Rebecca Ong-Bailey at first glance. Overall its a decent design, with some nice added elements, but maybe could have been executed a tiny bit better.
#1 Jess Phillips
The final and best design in my opinion comes from Jess Phillips. At first glance we see very similar features we’ve already seen in the other designs. A sans serif font to look modern, italicised text and slanted background to give the impression of looking to the future, and and extra tagline under the main logo to really hit home the message. This logo takes the best from all the others and runs with it. The added extra is the speech bubble on the side. As Jess is running on a honesty and free speech ticket, this added icon gives an added emphasis to her message. Its a tad more complex than some of the others, but the added elements make it better not worse. Overall a very nice design which is already being put to good use on Jess’ social media and website.
In the end, I doubt the designs used will swing too much favour one way or another, but its nice to see them all creating some interesting designs for their campaigns. Some have put more effort into it than others, and if anything shows that they want it more. Whoever wins, lets hope it was for their policies rather than their logo designs.