WHAT’S IN A LOGO?

A lot goes into a logo.

As a brand marker, a logo represents who you are, what you are, and what you aspire to be.  A lot of deliberation goes into the design and construction of one, and many eyes usually pass over a design before it’s selected to officially represent the company or the organization.

It’s not often, in fact it’s more often never, that a company or organization might regret their selection.

The Conservative Party of Canada, also known as the HR Squad (Hard Right) are among the best when it comes to corporate branding and messaging, although a full disclosure demands that I fess up to being mostly opposed to whatever message it is they’re trying to “sell” to the masses.  Right now they’re embarked on a Dr. Seuss phase of communication, where everything has to rhyme, or alternatively, nifty little catch phrases that easily roll off the tongue.  You know, Axe the Tax, Stop the Steal, Justinflation, Carbon Tax Carl, Kick the Stick, Stop the Mop, Hate the Gate, Shoot the Boot, and any others that the boys and girls down in the basement lab of party headquarters come up with.  That Carbon Tax one was the best, in my opinion, in that it rolls perfectly with just about anyone’s name that contains a single syllable.  It’s when we get into the second syllable that it kind of comes up short.

But still.  Carbon Tax Jagmeet doesn’t work so well, whereas Carbon Tax Singh gets it done.

But I’m here to talk about the party logo, which as I said, is an important graphic association with the overall brand.

Predictably, and suitably, it’s got that great big C, which can sort of do double-duty as a placeholder for the word CONSERVATIVE, and in a stretch, CANADA.  It also has a Maple Leaf, a red one, and that’s about par for the course for a Canadian political party.  It has the party colours, predominantly blue, a successful contrast to the white and red elsewhere.

And to finish it off, it’s got a stylistic light-blue swoosh that gives it a bit of a cool factor.

Again, I have to give credit where credit is due.  The Conservatives are among the best when it comes to this sort of thing, so much so that I’d have to say it’s an area of strength for the party.

But the person or persons who developed this logo built something a little different, a little more subtle into it.  And in that way, the logo rises from very good to beyond excellent.  In fact, you don’t get this quality of work, this quality of depth, with most creative design products.

So kudos to the boys and girls in the basement lab.  They freaking nailed it.

It’s been a tough time for the Conservatives recently, tough in that their 20+ point lead in the polls back in December has not only evaporated, but it’s turned upside down with the party now behind the Liberals by around 10 points, depending on the poll.  But no matter the polling firm, the numbers are still extraordinarily cruel for the Tories, and Pierre Poilievre in particular.  I mean that’s a thirty-point swing against you in just about every poll worth looking at.  Even fellow Tory Doug Ford, albeit a progressive conservative, released his in-house polling numbers that show the strength of the Liberals growing daily.  And Ford’s polling is usually pretty close to bang-on.

Tough times in Toryville.

But the kids in the lab knew what they were all about when they got together to spitball the new party logo a while back.  They no doubt brainstormed ideas, then brainstormed some other ones, had a bit of a back and forth, came up with a design full of meaning and curb appeal, then got it onto the design table for the finishing touches before kicking it upstairs for approval.  And at the end of this process, the result is what we see today.

They nailed it.

They nailed it because of the Big C, the Maple Leaf, and the colour palette.  It’s easily identifiable as a connector to the party, and if you achieve that at first glance, then you’re more than halfway home.

But it’s the level of prescience that has me marvelling.

You see, it’s the cool little light-blue swoosh, right under the Maple Leaf, that has me thinking that these designers don’t make the money they ought to for the work that they do.

Because that swoosh, that innocent little design feature, that little bit of style that they included in there to help with the pop factor, is an unmistakeable frown.

A frown mind you.

It’s like, how did they know?