Hotcards, Full Color Printing In The Nation

Third up in our review series: the Edwards campaign.

Edwards is a great candidate. He’s not afraid to make a bold move or stand apart from the crowd, but is his print design campaign standing apart in a good way, or a bad way?

The Edwards campaign is another one that seems to be running through a multiplicity of print designs and styles. Unfortunately, whereas the Hillary hodgepodge manages to show a unified front, the less sophisticated Edwards scramble leaves me with only a blurry sense of what he’s trying to get across.

Most of his signs use his first and last name, unlike any of the other frontrunners. His backgrounds are blue, white, or blue and white gradients, which is just fine. Vaguely flag-esque background pattern are all the rage this season on the campaign trail.

Then there’s his logo. It seems to be a star with some kind of green trail. I don’t get it. Does it mean that his platform is primarily or partially environmental? Or are his campaign designers just trying to bring something different to the table? It certainly is different, but regrettably, the greenish Edwards star trail just doesn’t compare to the golden Obama sun.

Edwards also puzzles me in his use of print signage to advertise his URL. All the candidates are doing it, but for some reason, the Edwards campaign has put a tiny URL up on their signs. It’s not like www.JohnEdwards.com is particularly long, but on a great big sign, it’s given surprisingly little real estate.

The undervaluing of the URL is strange considering that the Edwards campaign is running, in my opinion, one of the better candidate websites – very nicely designs, always entertaining, and less uptight and corporate than the rest. Too bad grandma won’t be visiting it, she couldn’t make out the tiny address on the signs at the rally.

Last but not least, I can’t help but notice how often a big, smiling picture of John Edwards shows up on his signs, buttons, and stickers. I mean, is he really that handsome? If you ask me, Obama is the genuine charmer of the bunch, but you don’t seem him plastering his grinning mug everywhere. Even Hillary has the grace to feature the average voter on her print advertising, instead of herself.

Oh well, I guess when you’re paying hundreds of dollars for haircuts, you want to show them off to the common people. Now no one need ever wonder what a $300.00 hairdo looks like again. (Of course, I'm sure Hillary's relieved that her campaign hairspray bill has yet to come under the microscope!)