Milton Glaser On THAT Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Logo

So, is this big blue H with a red arrow striking through it, pointing to the right as bad as everyone is saying? Along with her campaign announcement on Sunday, Hillary Clinton showed off her new logo and the Internet did what it does best, freaking out. Critics commented on everything from the direction the arrow is pointing to the FedEx rip-off and a variety of other super-oddball associations. Hillary Clinton’s, designed by Pentagram partner Michael Bierut, “H” didn’t exactly get a warm reception during its rollout. For some design experts it is too blocky, too familiar, with bad colors.“The use of blocky shapes and primary colors are what make the logo feel immature and clunky”, says behavioral scientist Susan Weinschenk. “People like curves, and this has no curves. It’s a stark, corporate, hard-edged logo” she said. “Red on blue is typically a faux pas in design because it can hurt viewers’ eyes and make the text look like it’s vibrating” she added. Even Sol Sender, a strategist who worked on Obama’s successful campaign logo, was negative about the big blue H: “It’s not a particularly galvanizing symbol. It doesn’t say a whole lot.” But when AIGA’s Eye On Design asked Milton Glaser what the renowned designer thinks about the onslaught of new presidential campaign logos from Hillary and the Republican hopefuls this is what he said:

“As we all have witnessed, politics in America is divisive and mean-spirited. The mark itself seems strong, simple, and memorable. Whether it embodies the spirit of Hillary’s objectives is another story.”

“The difficulty of such a mark is the requirement to be ambiguous in order to avoid alienating any part of your audience. In any case, as usual in communication, the relationship of the familiar to the novel is significant. Too much novelty results in confusion and indifference. Too much familiarity yields banality and indifference. The question of whether we must use stars, stripes, Statues of Liberty, torches, or rising suns as required symbols in a presidential identity becomes central to the problem.”

“In this case, we have an ‘H’ for Hillary and an arrow for movement. Whether it also contains the twin towers or the suggestion that the arrow faces right seems irrelevant. The mark doesn’t seem to be a breakthrough in the history of trademark design, but it’s professional and competent compared to the previously revealed identities of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.” Read the rest of his comment here.