Green Party of the United States Rebranding

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) has a significant problem in attracting new volunteers and voters, and they approached me to help them rebrand. The project began with extensive research into their membership and target audiences, leading to a unified party strategy and goals. This was followed by a workshop with the Steering Committee to refine understanding of the brief and goals.

A central aspect of Green politics is the four pillars (Peace, Ecology, Democracy and Social Justice). Many associate the party only with ecological issues, so getting the other 3 across was critical. After much sketching, an iconic square proved the most direct, memorable and easily-reproduced icon that includes ‘4’ elements. The square was hand-painted to help impart the grassroots volunteer mentality which guides GPUS. This aesthetic, balanced with the personality and quality of Joshua Darden’s Omnes typeface, forms the new GPUS brand identity.

The brand is completed with almost 400 separate pieces of artwork, comprising versions for internal, states, and Spanish-language usages. The pillars themselves have unique iconography, bound by a motif of ‘hands’ (representing the grassroots and humanity of the party) in a series of positive and active colors.

Supporting the visual brand is the messaging. For this, we felt that the most important thing for a party which is ill-understood, if listened to at all, was to quickly and memorably define themselves in the minds of their target audiences. These audiences are disaffected Republican and Democratic voters, young people in general, and African-American and Hispanic voters in particular.

I created a message structure which empowers the current party members to tell why they are members — #IAmGreen / #WeAreGreen because… This is complemented by use of the pillars artwork to frame issues through GPUS values, and to foster debate around them (#DemocracyIsGreen, #PeaceIsGreen etc).

This messaging is squarely aimed at social media usage, and will hopefully lead to many people beginning a conversation with the party and ultimately getting involved to bring about real change.