Here's how Andrew Yang branded his Forward Party
Reaction to the branding online hasn’t been very favorable
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced last week that he left the party and started a new one, called the Forward Party. Its slogan is “L̶e̶f̶t̶ R̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ Forward.”
The Forward Party uses the typeface ATF Franklin Gothic, which American Type Founders calls “the quintessential American sans for more than a century.” It’s a modern version of a 1905 typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton.
The party has an eagle mark and shortened FWD logo on some of its early merchandise, but its main logo is a star formed by five styled letter Fs. The logo’s gotten grief online for resembling the star logo of waste disposal and recycling company Republic Services, which is made from five letter Rs.
Overall, the reaction to the branding online hasn’t been very favorable. The verdict from @PopulismUpdates was that the Forward Party’s “graphic design leaves a lot to be desired.” Personally, though, I think this is Yang’s best visually designed political venture yet.
The logos for his presidential and mayoral campaigns didn’t say anything interesting or original, nor did the logo for his nonprofit Humanity Forward. Type has never been one of Yang’s defining visual identifiers and his past logos looked generic.
With the Forward Party, though, he’s using type that doesn’t look like what contemporary Democrats or Republicans are using. As for the star, my first impression wasn’t a garbage pickup logo, but the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial logo, designed by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv.
The Forward Party platform includes term limits for members of Congress, data as a property right, and election reforms like open primaries and ranked-choice voting. “Politics is tribal,” Yang tweeted Monday. “We need more than 2 tribes - for all of our sakes.”
See more >> [Meet the designer behind the Andrew Yang X Donald Glover pop-up shop merch]
Subscribe to 𝘠𝘌𝘓𝘓𝘖. You’ll never look at politics the same way again:
Here’s what you get for supporting:
SEE IT FIRST: Get every issue of the newsletter delivered to your inbox two hours early.
SEE IT ALL: Never miss a thing. Get every story I publish delivered directly, with no paywalls and access to the full archive.
SEE IT FOR YOURSELF: Get access to exclusive, subscriber-only stories.
Update: This post was updated on June 5, 2022 with additional images.