In May 2023 in Portugal, the socialist government of António Costa revealed a new visual identity for all government communications. Within a year it had been abandoned.
Instead of a forgettable, outdated and overly complex emblem of heraldry, designer Eduardo Aires created a sleek, stripped back logo and original typeface that projected a modern, exciting society.
In March this year, the new government’s first cabinet meeting began with a vote to revert to the old logo and typeface.
As Aires put it:
“After the prime minister had named the 17 new members of his cabinet, the first key issue to be debated, and the first decision the new government made, had to do with design. That’s unprecedented.”
You could be forgiven for thinking this is a fuss over nothing.
But getting typography and graphic design right is no small matter.
In an age of post-truth and disinformation, you bolster credibility and confidence with a consistent and hard-to-copy typeface and instantly recognisable logo.
Branding for a country is no less important than for a football team or fizzy drink or a school. More so, even.
So why did the committee of 18 politicians have such strong emotions about it?
Because it wasn’t theirs.
And that’s the challenge for every political group running an organisation: how to get over themselves and their opinion.
In schools, that political group is the School Board.
When School Boards have opinions about what works well, they can make great decisions or terrible ones. The truth is, their opinion doesn’t matter half as much as their judgement, based on the opinion of those skilled leaders who advise them.
Too often, we see Boards operate in a vacuum of quality information, or on the basis of extremely high quality but narrow anecdotal evidence. Too rarely do we see Boards push their leaders for better data, and more stories that back up what they think the data is telling them.
As for Aires, the initial frustration of having his creative work sent to the shredder has maybe been tempered by a greater achievement highlighted by his father:
“My father, who’s 88 years old, called me to congratulate me and say: well done son, you managed to make design, for the very first time, a topic of national significance.”