Dive Brief:
- Presidential candidate Marco Rubio's campaign logo seems to have at best underwhelmed marketers and design experts, and at worst offended certain U.S. states.
- The simplistic logo utilizes a map of the U.S. to represent the "i" in Rubio, but fails to include Alaska and Hawaii in the graphic—something Twitter users were quick to point out.
- Richard Westendorf, a creative director at Landor Associates brand consultants, told Business Insider that the decision to feature all-lowercase letters and a modern color palette was a "fresh" approach and achieved the goal of appealing to younger voters.
Marco Rubio logo pic.twitter.com/lO053ywuNi
— ComfortablySmug (@ComfortablySmug) April 13, 2015
Underwhelmed with Rubio's logo. Did you see that the dot on the i is a map of the USA? You probably didn't, bc it's so artistic.
— sarah (@mamaswati) April 13, 2015
There's no question @marcorubio's priorities are out of line with what's best for HI- he even forgot to include us in his campaign logo
— Mazie Hirono (@mazieforhawaii) April 13, 2015
I’m not much of a designer, but what about a combination #Hillary #Rubio logo! pic.twitter.com/g05b2ehbu0
— Paul McGrane (@pmcg) April 13, 2015
Dive Insight:
When marketers introduce something into a presidential campaign, they should expect it to be highly scrutinized and criticized. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign logo faced negative reactions, so Rubio is not alone as a recipient of design decision backlash. The criticism underscores the fact that even seemingly minor decisions—like a font or color scheme—can cause significant reactions within a competitive campaign.