Touching it, it's also quite sticky.
I don't know how it got that way.
(upbeat music)
My name's Matt Powell,
I'm a Wellington based designer,
software engineer, and performer,
and I'm here in Ōhāriu, north of Wellington
to take a look at some political billboards,
evaluate the shit out of them
and see if I can decide who to vote for
based on the design language of the billboards
and what that tells me about the people that they represent.
Okay, so what we've got here
is a poster for The Opportunities Party, TOP.
It's interesting that they don't say
The Opportunities Party anywhere on the poster,
I guess you're supposed to know that
that's what that stands for.
There's a lot of full stops on the poster, I don't know why.
I mean, what they've got there,
don't leave change to chance, that's a sentence.
TOP, not a sentence,
Jessica Hammond, not a sentence.
Ōhāriu, not a sentence.
So grammatically speaking,
I'm already voting down this billboard.
Next up, we've got New Zealand First,
quite a bold black and white colour scheme,
and they're both doing very well with tying into that.
Winston with his black and white pinstriped suit
and his black and white polka dot tie.
Stripes with polka dots, not really my thing,
but you do you, Winston.
Part of the logo is this big arrow,
and the way that that's set in the design,
is that it points me over to this person.
We don't even wanna look at Winston Peters
from this design,
we wanna look over here to the right.
And that's where the arrow is pointing, to the right.
New Zealand First, pointing to the right.
Here's another billboard that people
have added to a little bit with some pens.
I'm not sure if it enhances the look of the poster.
It's interesting to think about the colours
of political parties.
Here we have the right wing party with blue
and the left wing party with red.
Whereas in America,
they have the right wing party with blue
and the even more right wing party with red.
We've got the two politicians here
with strongly branded colours.
I'm not a fan of the square pattern on the tie,
but what it does do,
is it has these little boxes in it.
And those boxes look like one thing,
they look like this tick box for voting.
It's a very vote-centric tie.
This is the first one that I've seen
that doesn't have any photos on it.
It's just got two words, National, Hudson.
They're very big, they're very bold,
they're very white, so they stand out a lot,
white obviously being the colour
that reflects the most light,
and it's touching it, it's also quite sticky,
I don't know how it got that way.
I like this little star detail here,
how they've got three stars
of the Southern Cross in positive space
and one in negative space.
Maybe they're expecting a three-quarters positive impression
and maybe a quarter negative impression,
or maybe they just think negatively
of people from the south.
This is the first party where the name of the party
is also the name of the colour of the billboard,
and that's a strong branding association,
a Green Party, a green billboard.
Obviously that's going to be difficult,
if in the future we have the emerald party,
the two might get mixed up,
but for now it's a safe association.
This is the first billboard that I've seen
that doesn't have a big tick on it.
They do have the word vote
so maybe they're going for a more literate audience,
an audience who likes to read,
rather than an audience
who likes to look at pictures and icons
and be reminded of what to do.
Okay, so what we have here
is a billboard for the Māori Party.
The first thing I notice about this photo of Tākuta Ferris
is that his tie is a little bit loose.
He could have pulled that up,
but maybe what he's going for
is a cool after work drinks vibe,
but he doesn't seem very excited by it.
They have some text down the bottom,
believe in you, believe in me.
So I'm doing all the believing in this case,
which I find a little bit galling.
I would like, if I vote for a politician,
I would like them to work for me.
So maybe if it said,
I believe in you, or I'll believe in you if you vote for me,
not that I'm condoning vandalising these billboards at all,
but if someone has some twink
and they can just put a little I in here,
I believe in you,
I think that would actually help this billboard a lot.
This is the first billboard I've seen today
with a television celebrity on it,
dance superstar, David Seymour.
Obviously they're hoping that that will win votes
among people who watch television.
The text is in all capital letters,
one effect of using all capital letters,
as they've done here,
is that sometimes it can make you look like you're shouting.
So for example, when I read this billboard,
I don't read change your future.
I read, change your future
and that's quite confronting.
So what have we learned?
The most important thing is that your image has to be sticky
and I'm not just talking about sticky to the touch,
sticky up here, in the mind.
Remember if it sticks, it ticks,
two ticks on election day.
(upbeat music)