Establishing a new identity for a fresh political party brand.
The diversity of work undertaken by New Word Order is encapsulated by this project—a branding project for the Libertarian Party, a new force in Australia’s political landscape. Political parties are like any other commercial or organisational enterprise: They need a brand that can build awareness and engage audiences. Our client came to us with a name and wanted our expertise to understand where they could go with it. That's where the fun started!
Challenge
Ask an average Australian to name some political parties and they could probably muster between two and five names. In essence, our challenge was to create a political brand that, over time, would seep into the political consciousness and be one of the most recognised party names across Australian society. The secondary challenge was to inherently build into the brand the basic tenets of libertarianism, a political philosophy that is not widely known and therefore has little equity.
The spark
Like any organisation, political parties need strong branding to build awareness and engage audiences. Our challenge was to create a brand that could embed itself in the national consciousness while also expressing the core principles of libertarianism, a philosophy with limited public recognition. But one clear pillar of libertarianism was understood to have clear resonance with the average voter—the concept of individualism. This formed the crux of our work. We delved deeper into the idea of the Libertarian brand being about people rather than politics. This set the foundation for creative exploration and thematic execution.
Creative
Our creative process involved exploring a range of creative territories, each with their own different styles, tones and strengths. Research and stakeholder engagement quickly revealed that one particular territory that was directly personal and spoke to people on their level was the one that resonated most powerfully. This selected approach used first person language such as "I am", "I believe', "My family" and "My choices". Visually we enhanced the individualism concept by pulling out the 'i' in Libertarian to build a recognisable graphic device.
As a new political party brand, the initial focus was on creating a strong wordmark. Additionally we understood the equity of colour ownership within this unique sector. That resulted in us creating a colour palette far removed from the more established political party players and giving the Libertarian Party a highly distinct and 'ownable' brand colour set.
Outcome
Time will be the greatest measure of this project. Infiltrating the political zeitgeist is a mammoth task, but already the brand has been a part of a few elections and has undoubtedly created a mark. We look forward to seeing the brand taken into new parts of Australia and building success for the Libertarian Party.