The Catch

The YotaPhone 2 is a... 5-inch Android smartphone [that] comes with a 4.7-inch e-paper display on its back, which seems like an obvious gimmick until you start using it.

An actual new, interesting idea for a phone. Who knows how it feels in practice, but the low-fi look is strangely appealing to me.

Great new video for tUnE-yArDs from the colourful mind of  Animator/ Director Tom Jobbins featuring the vibrantly audacious talent of Merril Garbis

Another election is upon us here in New Zealand, which means every party has begun littering the country with their hoardings. By the time these election billboards have gone up, most voters know what each party stands for, and so often their job is less to communicate policy and more to simply remind people they exist when it comes to ticking the ballot paper. They therefore tend to be pretty basic – colour-coded to each party, a candidate's name, and liberal use of giant tick marks. But it's still an interesting exercise comparing how each of the main parties use the same rectangle space to try and win votes.

With that in mind, I thought I'd have a quick critique of each of the party's designs. Because no one else is going to.

National

National have been in government since 2008, and they have an extremely popular leader in John Key. Their campaign ("#TeamKey") and billboards seek to use that to their advantage, with John Key being featured prominently on every billboard, including the ones for local electorate MPs. By placing Key on the left, his is the first face you see. One could be forgiven for thinking you're voting for John Key in every electorate (if only!). 

It's part of a trend in the NZ media where the focus is more on a presidential-style battle of the two leaders of the major left and right parties, despite New Zealand having a mixed member proportional (MMP) system that results in many parties forming the government (and no presidential vetoes). It certainly helps when you have a leader most of the country appear to like, although it'll be interesting what National will do next election, when Key presumably won't be around.

Being the right-wing party, the National billboards are suitably conservative, and consistent with the branding they've employed for most of Key's tenure. It's not great design, but it's competent, does its job, and basically says nothing beyond "Hey, you like this guy. Here's more of him."

It's also a lovely shade of blue, National's traditional colour. I've noticed it's much lighter than it used to be, including compared to the much deeper blue they're using on their website. Not surprising – deep blue is not a very warm colour.

The other message of the National hoardings is their slogan, "Working for New Zealand", which is meant to play to the perception that they are the party of economic management. It does sound a bit working-class, which would normally be the domain of the left-leaning Labour party, but they're currently going through a bit of an identity crisis.

National look like they've used a condensed version of Futura, a classic typeface from the 1920s, and probably most famous for being used in Volkswagen's ads. Futura is very functional and efficient, so either the designer liked that connotation for National, or, perhaps more likely, just chose one of the most common sans serifs already on their Mac.

And there's a tick! So you don't accidentally put a cross on your ballot paper. That won't count.

Labour

Here's Labour, the major centre-left party, and a much more traditional "here's your local MP, here's their name, here's how to draw a tick" approach. I've seen some commentators, including journalists, use Labour leader David Cunliffe's absence as a sign the party isn't confident in him as a vote-getter, but I'd argue having your leader on every billboard is the anomaly, not the other way around. We get two votes in New Zealand, and neither of them are for the leader of the party (unless you happen to live in their electorate). Besides, there he is on the group photo! If you squint.

Labour has gone with a slogan of "Vote Positive", which is the sort of combination of words that feels like they were spat out by a hundred focus groups. Earlier in the year they were using "I'm In", but that appears to be their 'action' slogan, and "Vote Positive" is their 'campaign' slogan, and thank god I don't work in politics.

By the way, if you go to their action website their leader's head appears to be cut off, which, considering they've had so many recently, is probably easier than updating the image every time it changes.

In any case, they've tried to cram that slogan, and an appeal for the party vote, onto the electorate billboards as well, but I'm not sure who'll have time to read all that. Their logo is also astonishingly small (perhaps for spending reasons), but they're so identifiable with the colour red there's no doubt who this billboard is for.

Labour appear to be using the typeface Gotham, created in 2000 and enormously popular ever since it was used for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Ironically, it's based on geometric sans serifs like Futura.

Most importantly, Labour have appeared to create their own tick. No generic Zapf Dingbats number 3 tick here.

Green Party

The Greens typically have the best design even outside of elections, with numerous infographics and messaging going up on their Facebook page. It fits with their younger, more educated demographic, who care about such things. Two election cycles ago, they really broke the mold of typical election advertising by using full-bleed imagery of New Zealand scenery and people under the slogan "Vote for me". The campaign was widely praised, and even won advertising awards, but didn't appear to affect their turnout at the polls in the slightest. However, it did help change the Green Party's image, which until then had been of dope-smoking, tree-hugging hippies who danced funny at festivals. Now they have social policies with a lot of broad appeal, and dope-smoking and tree-hugging is like, fifth and sixth on the list.

As a party that exists pretty much purely on the party vote, the Greens are free from having to feature local MPs, and so instead go for a much more aspirational approach. Interestingly, this time around they've effectively gone negative, featuring images of polluted waters, traffic jams, and poor school kids, creating a contrast with their new slogan – "Love New Zealand." As a form of advertising, it's pretty clever. As an election billboard most people only see for a second as they drive by, it could create confusion.

Still, the Greens are once again pushing the boundaries of what election advertising is, and making the other parties look incredibly unadventurous by comparison.

The Green Party are practicing what they preach by using National, a typeface designed by New Zealander Kris Sowersby.

Conservative Party

Led and funded by millionaire Colin Craig, the Conservative Party missed out on entering Parliament last time, so are campaigning hard to  get in this time. The Conservative's design has been surprisingly good throughout the year, obviously done by a professional. So at least someone's happy this guy is around. 

They also have a logo that could be mistaken for a symbol for voting in general, a blue speech bubble saying simply "Vote".  Considering the Electoral Commission's rules state a logo "may be refused if the logo is… misleading, confusing", I'd be surprised if this is still their logo on the ballot paper come September. (UPDATE: it's been rejected.)

The problem with this billboard is the photo. Stern and creepy is not generally the vibe you're going for when you want people to vote for you. Craig has had issues with his image throughout the year, to the point where it's entirely reasonable to wonder whether all these photographers are taking the piss out of him. Plus, this: 

The Conservative's font choice appears to be Trade Gothic Condensed, which is fitting, because Trade Gothic is such a boring, conservative font I almost fell asleep just typing that. And it totally is the sort of font you use to tell people to get off the grass.

Internet Mana

The awkward name is caused by two separate parties – the Internet Party and MANA – banding together to form one, left-wing, internet-freedom and Maori-issues bloc in order to meet NZ's 5% threshold to get into Parliament. All they need to worry about is the party vote, since the MANA part will likely handle the electorate side of things with the special Maori seats. The more party vote they get, the more MPs, hence a straight-forward billboard that is all about awareness. The designer's actually done a pretty good job of merging the black, red and white of MANA with the slickness of the Internet Party. There is also one big-ass tick. If I was basing my vote solely on the size of the tick, Internet MANA would win.

Internet MANA have gone with Graphik, from 2009, making it easily the newest typeface here, although it's inspired by the original sans serifs like Akzidenz-Grotesk. There is some serious money behind this party.

NZ First

NZ First are a party that doesn't do anything for two and half years, and then suddenly Winston Peters is everywhere being all charismatic, and they somehow squeak into Parliament. 

This billboard though. "It's common sense" over a picture of scenic New Zealand? What does that even mean? It's like they saw the Greens' billboard, slapped "common sense" on there – because who can argue with common sense? – and buggered off to the pub. At least it looks like more care went into the design than their website.

And that looks like Helvetica. Can't get more common sense than that.

Act

Jesus. I guess if your message is 'Tough on Crime' then your leader should look like he'd knife you if you tagged his wall.

Act are the requisite far-right party, who thanks to a little suburb called Epsom, get in every time. A large party vote would give them more than one MP, but the polls don't show much chance of that happening this time. So this guy probably won't make it.

I believe the typeface is Frutiger, designed in 1975 by a Swiss. It's rational but organic, if a little dated. And they have a tick built into their logo. it used to be inside the 'c', as seen on this page, which is a little more elegant. Still, if you're still unsure who to tick when that ballot paper is in front of you, why not just copy the tick in the logo right there. Genius.

Today in Advertising Trends: gimmick printing. From DDB New York we have The Drinkable Book, a manual on safe water whose pages act as water filters; from JWT Brazil the Barbeque Bible, with pages including a knife sharpener, one made of salt and a inflammable page to start the fire; and now Leo Burnett Asia brings us a newspaper in Sri Lanka printed with anti-mosquito citronella. If you have a similar idea (perhaps a book about raising children whose pages can be used as diapers), sorry, your award chances have probably already passed.

Jazz: awful music, great art design. As proof, Rodrigo Maia gave modern records the Blue Note treatment and they're objectively better than before.

How to Knock Off a Bag (or how to advertise the quality of your product in an unconventional way).

Christmas Gifts and the Meaning of Design | stratēchery by Ben Thompson

Over at Brand New, Mark Kingsley takes the opportunity of Sean Combs' new music channel Revolt's logo to go on a great, disgusted rant, tracing the design's rebellious appropriation from Barbara Kruger to Shepard Fairey to Supreme. Worth reading.

High Road - A brilliant Web Series from NZ based cleverman Justin Harwood. Filmed on location in Piha, Justin draws on what are no doubt his own life experiences (former Chills and Luna bass player and Piha Radio founder). You HAVE to watch this, with each episode running about 8 mins it’s time well spent.

Yahoo – remember Yahoo? – spent the last month hyping their forthcoming logo change by showing a new logo everyday. Some of them were good, most were pretty awful. But it was a fun gimmick. It got some attention, which I assume was the point. Now, the final logo is revealed and it's...

... well. Let me list five problems with this new logo:

1. It looks incredibly old-fashioned.

2. It has bevels. I'm not sure why an internet portal needs bevels, unless they're moving into Roman architecture. It will also be nearly invisible at small sizes, like on their website.

3. After 30 days of hype, it's... just another logo. There's nothing radically different about it, nothing to justify that amount of attention.

4. This quote from Yahoo's CEO and President Marissa Myer, who apparently views the redesign of her company's logo so trivially as to knock it out one weekend herself:

"On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator. I think it’s one of the most incredible software packages ever made. I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous :)

So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team... We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail."

God I feel sorry for that design team. She sounds unbearable.

And finally, 5. What has Yahoo achieved by this redesign? Is the new one so different from this?

Is it saying anything different? Is it positioning the company in a new space, modernising it, giving people a reason to reconsider Yahoo? No. If anything it's hurting the brand by looking more dated than the original. So this whole exercise was pointless anyway.

Look, it's never easy to roll out a redesign of a large company's logo, especially with the internet hordes eagerly judging every possible result, good or bad. But this is just bad.

Head over to Brand New to see more designers tearing the new Yahoo logo apart.