ABOUT THE VISUAL ASPECT OF ENGLAND-SCOTLAND (POTENTIAL) BREAK UP

When it comes to break ups I stick to a standard routine: do it, cry about it and get over it as soon as possible. Live on. But what if over 58 million people break up at the same time - will it be as easy? Is exceeding the alarm levels of Thames with tears and boosting Ben&Jerry's sales the worst it can get? We'll see about it tomorrow when the independence referendum poll results are out and official. For now I would like to focus on the visual and marketing aspects on both sides of the wall.

If we judged the book by its cover which one would we rather read: "Yes" or "Better Together"?

First and foremost: people buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. The same goes for good marketing and yes, even for a name like… Yes. It's short, simple and most importantly: positive. The message is clear and unsubtle: vote YES, we're better off without them - and so is the campaign.

 

The graphic execution is as strong and simple as the name: closely kerned sans serif on plain white or blue background (nice shade, no?), which connects to the colors of Scottish flag, gives feeling of strength and unity. And speaking of flags, they are an important marketing tools too, for isn't a cross a downright reference to the sign you should be making on your poll card on the 18th of September?

Thanks to its uniformity and austerity the identity can be applied to various media and purposes without loosing any of its original power. Sure, a part of me wishes the posters were more push forward than safe bank ad like, but I guess that's where they try to make up for the much talked about lack of serious debate and relying mostly on emotions.

But then look at the photo of that sculpture. Cool, right to the point and I suppose, spontaneous, for as it seems Yes has a strong crowd of followers ready to get out there and bring others on the board. Smart move distributing badges in schools and providing people with huge cardboard yes's. Just look how happy they are!

On to the Better Together campaign. It starts off with Google Images search results saying, well… not much. As Mr. Aleksandra Kaniewska of the Institute for Polish Citizens think tank said on Tok.fm this morning: the leader of Better Together,  Alistair Darling is a typical pragmatic who prefers to the point debate than an emotional ramble, an argumentative conversation over catchy slogans. Unfortunately when it comes to advertising (and in the end that's exactly what these people do) : the shorter the better. "Better Together" is better than a harsh "No", but it's still longer and less memorable than an optimistic "Yes" - said Kaniewska.

The logo itself is neither amazing nor horrible. It's also not that different from the Yes one. But because of its length it just doesn't have the same kind of impact. And does it really need that signet? I get the idea: the flag + getting together, but… Yawn.

 I'm also puzzled about the posters. They too, like the Yes's ones, resemble bank or insurance companies ads. I see an old man, I see a lot of text, but the message isn't getting through and since most of the posters are purely defensive (they say this, but in fact it's that) they should scream and not just say their point. Did the certain phlegmatic Darling man interfere too much or was the graphic designer just lacking some balls? Digging a little deeper shows that maybe neither is true and the Better… is actually not that bad. So what do we have here?

UK OK is as simple and catchy as it can get - I can't see any reason why it wasn't picked for the name of the campaign in the first place. Just look at it: it does its job on the badges and it'd look great on totes and t-shirts too - not just now, but in 5 years too, not just for the British, but also for the tourists. UK OK is nothing less than I love NYC and it's when they become confident rather than defensive that they become visually stronger.

Little blackmailing hasn't hurt any one yet, has it?

All in all, it's all interesting to observe, but it must have been damn hard to be an insider. Designing a good identity is difficult as it is, designing an identity that will grab the audience (let alone over half of a 5.3 million nation!) is a whole nother story. I feel for graphic designers who had to make it work: balance the rational and the emotional, push but not exaggerate. In my opinion they both succeeded visually, though Yes handled advertising much better: they went out there, with their badges, posters and the one, uniform sign for Yes. Somewhere between the rational posters, UK OK and No stickers Better Together lost their homogeneity and hence, their message. But I'm the old traditionalist, so fingers crossed for UK tomorrow. Even more so that they lost the branding battle.