Shortly after Barack Obama’s historic 2009 election to the US presidency, I was invited by Walker Art Center design director Andrew Blauvelt to moderate a discussion with Sol Sender and Scott Thomas, the minds behind Obama’s game-changing campaign graphics at an event in the Walker Cinema. But first, I was asked to offer an introduction on the history of political graphic design: the context for how radically their work for Obama changed the way political campaigns communicate. My intro grounded the discussion in the local context, from more expected designs for the campaigns of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale to more unorthodox approaches taken by the campaigns of Jesse Ventura and the late, great, green-bus-driving Paul Wellstone. It also contrasted Obama’s graphics with those of opponent John McCain, whose typeface choice—the same one used on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial—offered a more resolute and militaristic vibe than Obama’s optimistic and acccessible one. Marking my first public return to the Walker after leaving in 2007 to become editor of the Minnesota Independent, the evening still stands as a fond memory of how art and politics can co-exist in compelling and unexpected ways.
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