There’s a lovely new range of graphics in a whole new style. Well done to the creative types in the party who have put them together, mainly from quotes from his speech on Thursday night. They are very pretty. And there’s not a Stronger Economy, Fairer Society in sight.
The first comes from a comment he made on Twitter to a Liberal Youth member which sums up his feelings on same sex marriage:
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36 Comments
Great stuff all round. I’ve had negative feedback from a couple of people on the pills in the last one. I’m relaxed about it, but it’s something that’s come up. How do other people feel about that?
I see someone has found a Spirograph 🙂
Ok first of all, I love the messages. They capture perfectly and succinctly what the Party stands for, and they are very powerful. Heck even I feel like joining after reading all that!
Not sure about the first one though….. Love is Love with Tim’s signature is enough. The phrase “Of course it is” is sometimes used ironically to suggest the opposite of what one means so I think that one needs more work.
As for the pills, and the word “diagnosis”… It comes from nowhere. There is no ‘medical’ theme before that. So it’s not great. However the words are very very powerful.
John,
Yes, I think pills are a bit of a dodgy message!
I also found some of the words hard to follow with the sentence breaks imposed by the change in font boldness. It is better to make each part self-contained, unless it is just one or two words bold for emphasis. In particular “Lined up against each other across borders” needs rewording, I would say (ask Tim for a new quote!). The others work much better, but in the immigration one I would put the quotation marks around the quote, not the whole thing! (people will not really realsie these soundbites are all Farron quotes..)
Jennie – you can still buy Spirographs you know – I bought one in San Francisco last year as a Christmas present for a 7 year old!
The pills just match the message of ’embrace that diagnosis’ blending diagnosis with the treatment. Not at all sure why that would be a problem. I think they’re all fantastic and would be delighted to see them on billboards everywhere – er, can we afford that?
@Jennie – Probably this : http://nathanfriend.io/inspirograph/
My family are Spirograph fiends, we’ve got many different sets…. :S
David,
By what has been posted it seems Tim HAS said that this morning…
David: I am afraid most people will see the pills and never read what is underneath them… In advertising you have to make sure that very bit of your advert can be looked at individually and made sense of. If it was a stethoscope or something it would be ok but pills could mean drugs…
It is the same with the words in the other images – the primary message (in bold) works well in very case, which is great… But in one case the secondary message is confusing for me…
Sorry! Two different Davids I was replying to there!
Actually, I really like this, except maybe I don’t quite understand the pills – in fact it took me a little while to work out what they are.
I love all the spirograph ones. The first one and last one I am really not sure about at all. The first one looks as if Tim feels he needs to keep apologising for that one error. …..which will only draw attention back to it……We already have gay marriage in this country so it really doesn’t matter what ANY politician thinks about it unless they are in a position to try to repeal it. . The last one is just confusing. The message is ok although not as punchy as the others. The graphics are dire – sorry. In the unlikely event we CAN afford billboards all over the country I would want to see the one about seeing the best in people not the worst.. But if that one can be available to tweet or put on facebook lets see that one go viral!
New bold graphics that provide a visual break with the past and a positive statement of our message – great.
But these – really?
On a practical level, most of them are just too hard to read, thin text on a patterned background. And when you do read them, what do they actually mean? Most of them assume the reader already knows the issue behind them. Why will that be true? Co-operation with who? Isolation from what? Why is Tim Farron calling me a failure? What success? Etc.
That one and the ‘love’ one are as bad as the election campaign photocall with the people holding up cards with stability, thingy and what’s it on them. Words with no context isn’t communication.
None of the say ‘Liberal Democrat’ anywhere??
I don’t like the ‘pills’ either. Just ‘LIBERAL’ in white may work well.
Also Tim Farron’s signature is not easily readable as ‘Tim Farron’ on most of these. It looks more like Tim Faram to me.
Has anyone shown these to people who are not Lib Dems? I’m not sure the person in the street will necessarily equate these posters with the Liberal Democrat Party unless the recognise the logo or recognise that the signature is Tim Farron’s (and know who he is).
Perhaps instead of pills, it could have been bricks or building blocks and then tag line could have been ‘ help us build a better Britain’ or something along those lines.
As it is, my first read-through was ‘ Guess what? You are a (pill-popping) Liberal’
Surely we must have some graphic designers in the party who would be willing to lend their services?
I like the sound of this “Tom Farm” chap, though. Is he one of ours?
MUCH MORE THOUGHT NEEDED BEFORE THESE POSTERS GO PUBLIC.
I agree with comments about Tim Farron’s signature not being clear but have much more of a problem with the Liberal Party being so strongly identified with one person Ie the new leader.
‘Love is love ‘ is a wishy washy message and could be seen as a ‘biblical type’ message. I’m gay and would much prefer just to see a huge rainbow LD bird symbol on a poster and not Tim’s name.
This feels like a marketing campaign for Tim Farron not the Liberal Party.
All rather airy fairy, if you ask me.
OK, so Liberals are all luvvy-duvvy and really nice to everyone, but how is this going to help me:
get a job
get my kid into the right school
see a doctor
get my stolen bike back
repair the potholes in my road
get my bins collected on time
stop the government wasting my taxes
stop me from being blown up by a rampaging terrorist
etc.
etc.
It sounds to me like these Liberals are a bunch of dippy hippies, too obsessed with the EU, gays and immigrants to ever do anything for ordinary little old me.
Sorry, don’t like them and probably wouldn’t take the time to read them.( I do have an eyesight problem- but others do have an attention problem.
As Phyllis has already noted, where are the words Liberal Democrat?
If I were asked to adapt the existing messages, I would personalise them:-
Do you believe LOVE IS LOVE? – Vote Liberal Democrat. Tim Farron.
Do you see people as individuals rather than opposing tribes ?- Vote Liberal Democrat. Tim Farron
Do you favour cooperation over isolation? – Vote Liberal Democrat. Tim Farron
Much as I approve of the sentiments, I don’t see the posters as an improvement of the ‘road to nowhere graphic”. And as for the pill one, less said the better. Is Liberalism an illness in need of ‘diagnosis’ ? Is it a sickness in need of a cure? Fortunately, it’s saving grace seems to me to be that it has too many words for someone with an attention span for advertising such as myself.
As I say, sorry, but I think you could do yourself more justice.
Richard Stallard
Look I’m not a Lib Dem like most of the folks on here but even I, at arms length, can think of all the following without even breaking sweat! Others will have better answers! :
get a job: Lib Dems created huge numbers of apprenticeships to get young people into jobs, they believe in investing in regions and communities.
get my kid into the right school – lets make all schools the right school . LDs believe in giving all pupils the best chance hence the pupil premium, it has helped my daughter get a B in Maths. This also helps with your ‘job’ question.
see a doctor – I’m guessing that Lib Dems will allow more doctors to be recruited from abroad to cover gaps, invest in the NHS to train more medics and encourage the use of technology to make appointments easier?
get my stolen bike back – no idea did you have it laser-engraved? Lots of stolen goods sit unclaimed.
repair the potholes in my road and bins collected – are you kidding? LD councillors are great at this kind of thing ! It’s their forte. No-one repairs pothole, gets bins collected on time better than the Lib Dems.
stop the government wasting my taxes – depends on what you mean by waste but Lub Dem councillors are incredibly efficient! (We had one, sadly no more). Lib Dems also prioritised going after tax evaders, mega corporations etc. so everyone pays their fair share.
stop me from being blown up by a rampaging terro – Lib Dems marched against the War in Iraq which you could argue is directly responsible for much of the terrorism nowadays. But they are not afraid to give the authorities the power they need to fight terrorists while protecting the rest of us from unwarranted snoopers.
Ok before people tear into this, you can probably argue with many of these but the broad approach of the Lib Dems is there for everyone to see.
I like the new light style very much but I’m not sure how the graphics are going to be used. Are they posters? Or are they for newspapers and other literature? The quotes are very powerful and we need to apply some of them to how we view other members of the party.
As an ex SDP member I have always referred to myself as a Liberal Democrat but I think I am almost at the point where I can call myself a Liberal.
Can I just say I like them! Apart from the pills that is. I think they are a good break from the past and different. I like the idea of the leaders signature plus the bird. Makes people think and that’s what we need to get people to engage with us. Where we use them – wherever – they are attractive. Caught my eye on FB anyway . To the designer – well done for doing these – good start to publicising a new era. To those who are nitpicking – stop it – you could have done something yourselves . Finally as an SDP joiner I am at last able to call myself Liberal following this leadership campaign. Let go of the past folks and embrace the modern (but retro) era of the flying bird and the spirograph!
LOL feeling the spirograph love: I used to have one as a kid, no idea you could still get them. I have the urge to go buy one now!
(deliberately not entering into the daft moralising about the pills here)
Phyllis,
You miss my point entirely!
Are you going to stand alongside every one of these posters for 24 hours a day and explain all that to everyone who looks at them?
The idea of a posters is to inform. What they tell me is that the Liberals are nice and cuddly-wuddley but don’t actually DO anything meaningful for the average Joe.
Please keep the colour of Pantine Gold, for consistency and because it stands for first place. We need to win elections, as tim Farron said, and win some more elections and … … .
Can we just have some decent down-loadable non-copyright pix of Tim for leaflets please. Nothing on the party website, and the ALDC template just has a weird monochrome effort with a tiny Tim posed against a gabled roof.
Jim
The quickest route is to google “Flickr Liberal Democrats photostream Tim Farron”. Ignore the first result and go to the next few, for example this one:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/libdems/2869227767
You have to attribute as stated. Only use “Some rights reserved” photos – NOT ones with “All rights reserved”. If you click on the words “Some rights reserved” the policy is explained.
Of important note – these aren’t produced by a paid party official, but by Ryan Cairns who runs the Liberal Democrat Response Team page on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/Libdemresponseteam
The chap is very much deserving of some funding in my opinion!
Richard Stallard. Ah ok. The thing is, if you put ” investing in public services” etc, you just sound like all the other parties’ sound bites. Everyone says they stand for jobs, great road and rail infrastructure, good policing, etcetc even though you might not believe them. But after another five years of (“nasty”) Tory rule, people might actually value the fuzzy stuff.
Anyway, I am guessing this is Phase 1 where Tim is establishing the Party’s values and belief system for the Party to unite behind and future phases will move on to the sort of areas you are talking about. The Party has been through major trauma working alongside the Torys for the last five years and it’s understandable for the new Leader to spell out what unites everyone as Liberals on all wings of the Party
Ps Richard Stallard I think these messages are to do with “gut liberalism’ – see Nicholas Belfitt’s article today on LDV which explains where Tim is coming from.
Phyllis,
Okay – I can see where you’re coming from. The subjects in the posters are fine for internal morale-boosting, but would make pretty poor campaign subjects. Now, please don’t got me wrong here; I’m speaking as most of the people I know would react to them so as to give constructive feedback. Don’t shoot the messenger!
“Love is Love” . Most people I know don’t give two hoots about gay marriage. “Ah,” you might say, “but it matters to gay people who want to get married”. Yes – but they already know the LD stance on it, so don’t waste time reiterating it. It’s irrelevant to most people. The war is won on that one. Forget it and move on.
“See the BEST in people”. Okay – so what? Meaningless. Anyway, I prefer my politicians to be realistic, alert to the other side’s tricks and wizard wheezes, and hard negotiators. This suggests weakness.
“Immigration is a blessing”. The vast majority would be hard pushed to agree, especially since the rise of ISIS. Harsh, but true. They might tolerate immigrants but realistically, most would rather see fewer of them. That one alone is an election-loser if you bang the drum too hard on it, and the LDs won’t get the whole immigrant vote by a long chalk.
“We see people as individuals, not as opposing tribes”. Human nature is tribal. That’s why they support sports teams, fight in wars and band together in clubs (like the LDs!). Go against nature and, again, you’re onto a loser. Makes me think the LDs are ashamed to be British.
“Cooperation over Isolation”. If you mean the EU, then say it, but the recent Greek debacle hasn’t enamoured very many people to the EU.
Remember, I’m giving this as constructive criticism and what I have written above is what my neighbours (the man on the Clapham omnibus) would say if they saw the posters, so please don’t “send the boys round” to sort me out!
Richard Stallard, hehe don’t worry you’re quite safe! I understand your point completely and as it happens, I agree. In particular the Immigration one made me pause. But that is what the Lib Dems believe I guess.
Phyllis,
You don’t live near Clapham, by any chance?
And occasionally take the omnibus?
Like all these except maybe the last one. Too many words and not sure about the pills, although I did like the “embrace that diagnosis” device in Tims speech. Have we also become the Liberal Party?
Maybe a series of posters with one of the statements in isolation, e.g. “If you care about human rights, you are a Liberal. Embrace that diagnosis!”
I’m in agreement with Phyllis with regards to the pills on the second poster, it just arrives out of nowhere and feels a bit pointless, diluting what is otherwise a powerful message