145 - The Design of The Conservative Party

What this episode covers

In the lead up to the general election in the UK on June 8th, I'm doing a series of episodes about the design of UK political parties. Today's is about The Conservatives. Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED Music and links from this episode Siamo Tutti Antifascisti by Monplaisir Radiasiya by Mystery Mammal Line-by-line notes Yesterday I spoke about the design and branding of the Labour party I spoke about how they use the colour red, and where the red came from And I went through their logos, and spoke about some of their reasoning behind their logos I enjoyed doing it actually, a lot And in the lead up to the june 8th general election in the UK I’m doing a series of episodes analysing the history of the design and branding of the major UK political parties There’s something I didn’t mention yesterday that I want to mention today I’m trying to be as objective as I can with these episodes, as I’m not trying to influence your political opinion in any way I’m purely looking at the political parties because their interesting, and not for any other reason The only other reason I’m doing these episodes is so I can try and influence you to vote It doesn’t matter who you vote for, but if you’re a UK citizen over 18 it’s really important you vote Anyway, enough of that. Let’s get to looking at The Conservatives design and branding throughout the years This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess MUSIC Let’s start like we started last time, by looking at colour As Labour is red, the Conservatives are almost the exact opposite: they’re blue In really crude, childish terms, just the colour difference shows how different they are to other parties like Labour It’s a little bit like when the bad guy and the good guy in a cartoon always wear different coloured clothes It immediately and very obviously sets up a point of difference between the parties And that colour… blue… you can’t really go wrong with that You’ll see a million companies out there using the colour blue, because it’s a very safe colour It’s a very popular colour with banks and other things to do with money, because it means safety, and security It’s a colour that makes a lot of sense for a political party to use Because it’s used extensively throughout businesses that you tend to trust It almost automatically sets you up to trust a political party that is blue Blue also, is nearly always used to indicate a political party with conservative views But not always, because in america—as is a lot of other things—it’s the complete opposite In America, the democrats are blue, and the republicans (the conservative party equivalent) are red But america is the exception to the rule here So for The Conservatives in the UK, the blue colour makes a lot of sense, both as a political colour and as any business picking a colour It actually makes a little bit more sense than Labour’s choice of red, as red can be seen as quite a striking or negative colour to some people and cultures Blue is just safe, almost universally, around the entire world So that’s the colour blue, but what about that logo? Well, the Conservatives logo is actually pretty interesting I struggled to find the original logo of the Conservatives, but I found the one they used right back in the Thatcher era The torch logo, introduced in the Thatcher era, is a really strong statement of intent It isn’t like Labour’s original logo, that plays to the people This logo, the torch logo, was grandiose, and dare I say even a little bit pompous It reminds me of an olympics logo, or the logo for a Great Britain sports team It feels strong, and powerful, and a logo that you can get behind and be proud to wear as a pin badge In comparison to the Labour logo of the British rose, the British rose is a much more restrained and down to earth symbol It doesn’t have the same weighty intent behind it, and such an overt sense of power embedded in it Even the way that the hand is...