September 29, 2008
Green Billboards 2008
I just want to give some recognition to the best design work of the NZ election campaign thus far, and it has come from an unexpected source - the Green party. The Greens don't have a history of excellence in the visual design stakes, and their hoardings for the last election were (IMHO) pretty damn ugly:
The whole series of 2005 billboards is visible here.
This year, they have put some serious resource into the billboard campaign - either that, or they've stumbled across an exceptional designer willing to work for cheap. Everything about their '08 boards is on point. Check out this one, which was the first one I saw:
It's perfect stuff - the composition of the image is great, the broad horizon speaks to the Green's themes, even the demeanour of the model is well-placed. The simple, simple, simple message is genius. And I love the typeface of the key message (although I would have preferred the "vote for" typeface to match). Best of all, it works on the big scale - it looks fine on the screen, but enormous on the side of a building it really throws weight.
It's great to see. Billboard design has symbolic importance for this election, thanks to the role played in the 2005 election by the highly contentious (and very well-designed) "iwi/kiwi billboards". Sure enough, googling up the images for this post has turned up much interest and praise, some of which is summarised here at FrogBlog. Labour partisans The Standard even fear these billboards are too slick!
I think this is a significant step up in game that the Greens need to make if they want to make it happen this election. They have clearly decided internally to campaign on the "vote for your children" line, which seems like a risky choice to me but executed this well they might pull it off. I'm impressed with these billboards, and their new leader Russel Norman is giving a good account of himself (even though he seems to be hated in the house?). You go, Greenies.
Hmm. Whatever the merits of the graphic design, campaign billboards are nothing more than advertising, giving absolutely no substantive information. As such, they're part of a blight on and in our society, and should not be permitted.
Posted by: Jamie at September 29, 2008 6:34 PMReally? You like them? I think they're smug and self-righteous. But I've just come back from a five-day visit to my parents, so admittedly I'm in a very bad mood.
Posted by: Heather at September 29, 2008 7:58 PMYou like them? Really? Me, I just think they're kinda smug and self-righteous.
Posted by: Heather at September 29, 2008 8:00 PMJamie - well, yeah, I agree in principle, but if we have to live in a world with advertising billboards (and I think they're close to inevitable as a consequence of human information processing) then these suit me just fine.
Heather - disclaimer: I'm a Green voter by tradition now, so that no doubt colours my perceptions. But yeah, I like them. I admire them too. Smug and self-righteous? I don't really see it - except as a reflection of how these billboards channel the Greens political rhetoric and all relevant associations, perhaps.
Posted by: morgue at September 29, 2008 9:07 PMI like them too. Put 'em alongside a huge-ass picture of Helen or John (emblazoned on party red or blue) and they stand up very well, IMO.
Posted by: Matt at September 30, 2008 6:54 AMI was really impressed when I saw them for the first time the other day, they are much nicer to look at than John Key's ugly mug :)
Posted by: Chrissy at September 30, 2008 12:48 PMHmmm, not sure what happened there, but that page at The Standard gave me a virus and killed my 'puter.
So, watch out people, make sure you've got protection when heading there...
Posted by: Scott A at September 30, 2008 2:27 PMI would much rather there were no billboards at all but if we have to have them at least these are less aesthetically obnoxious than most.
Posted by: Pearce at September 30, 2008 7:56 PMIn moderation, I like billboards, and I really like these ones... I don't get "smug and self-satisfied" from them...
I am not normally a green party voter... for some reason their anti gm stance has put me off til now, cos I really think we might need them as part of the solution:-) But this election I'm definitely heading in that direction... their environmental and social policies are definitely the best of the bunch:-)
One of the reasons I am a Green supporter because they, probably along with Jim Anderton's Progressives, are a political party who do seem to have integrity and genuine ideals and goals beyond simply getting and holding power. They seem to honestly believe in things, and put those beliefs first. Now, maybe I'm being a bit rose-tinted here, but that's how I feel.
Those ads, though, make me feel uneasy. I feel very uncomfortable when politicians try to play on my emotions - that's the tactic of extremists, of hollow men, of politics of power rather than politics of policy. And those ads, by nature of their design, are very keyed into getting an emotional response.
A lifetime of political involvement and observation has, unfortunately, left me cynical, and whenever I feel a politican trying to trigger an emotional response in me I immediately think to myself "what are they trying to distract me from?"
When I first saw the ads as a scrolling banner on the Public Address website I was impressed by their design and impact. But that soon followed with a bit of sadness that the Greens had decided to go for something that was almost emotional blackmail. Vote for us or your children are doomed!
I really am sick of the politics of fear. But it seems to be what is driving politics in the west at the moment. It's a real shame. Where are the politics of hope? The politics of aspiration?
Posted by: Scott at October 2, 2008 4:52 PMScott - interesting. I have sympathy for this perspective but I guess its a sign of where my head/politics/etc is at that I don't feel the same. I see this as a necessary and desirable engagement with contemporary communication strategies, that work on a symbolic and emotional level. Symbols and emotions will always defeat rational content - so for all the questions raised by their usage, I applaud it being done and being done well.
I don't attach the same meanings you do to these; or that Heather does in earlier comments; or, even, that Jamie implicitly does. The nature of symbols is that they channel the meanings we apply to them. What I see is advertisements that echo the fundamental message of the Greens politics, not emotional blackmail; and I suspect that is the way they're being read by New Zealand at large.