Presidential Campaign Logos Reach New Level Of Sophistication

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

With the new presidential candidates come their logos - logos on bumper stickers, T-shirts, buttons.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

We wanted a critique of the logos for the first batch of politicians to enter the 2016 presidential race, so we called up Armin Vit. He's a graphic designer who edits a blog about logos. He started with Rand Paul.

SIEGEL: Paul's logo is simple. It's the candidate's first name in bold letters. Vit calls these strong and assertive. But he's not sure about the Olympic-style torch embedded in it.

ARMIN VIT: The torch itself - you know, the fire part seems like it could have used a couple more revisions to make it more convincing. It lacks a little bit of fire.

CORNISH: The flame theme seems to be hot so far. Ted Cruz's logo has elements of old glory in his flame, but, says Vit, the flame kind of looks like a droplet.

VIT: The fact that this flame kind of makes me think of oil burning somehow.

SIEGEL: Then there's Marco Rubio's logo. It's his full name in lowercase letters. The dot over the I is a small silhouette of the continental U.S. Armin Vit says the logo feels approachable, but he's concerned about that silhouette.

VIT: When you look at it small, it ends up looking like a whale - like a fish.

CORNISH: Ouch. On the Internet, the harshest words are reserved for Hillary Clinton's new logo. It's a blocky blue H with a red arrow cutting across the middle.

SIEGEL: Many wondered whether a red, right-facing arrow was the best choice for a Democratic candidate. And one person tweeted (reading) what lucky third-grader won the design-the-Hillary-Clinton-campaign-logo contest?

CORNISH: Armin Vit says Clinton's logo may be simplistic, but it's memorable.

VIT: It definitely stands out as something that we haven't seen in presidential candidate logos.

CORNISH: And when there's a growing field of candidates, standing out is a very important thing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.