Musings on branding and hipsterdom in the Conservative movement

As the resident hipster here at the YFP, Tristyn's post about style and conservatism struck a chord with me. "Why," I asked myself, striking a pose that would have made a great myspace photo, "is it that hip conservative slogans cannot be found upon t-shirts for the general consumption? Are we not a market, and do we not believe in the free market?" Taking a sip of my beer, I tried to think of reasons. "It could be the lack young conservatives with high-brow, witty humour," I muse. It is true that the majority of "conservative" humour is rather low-brow and must un-witty (see Jeff Foxworthy), but this isn't necessarily a reflection of what the young conservatives want, is it?

"Could it be that conservatives don't hire good graphic designers?" I further suggest to myself, and find that I may have hit upon something. There are times when the conservative love for tradition becomes a hatred of all things new. While there is something to be said for eschewing certain fads, to be a movement of Luddites will help no one. Look, for instance, at the presidential elections. The Obama campaign, from an early point, understood the importance of branding. Their logo is perfect; it makes a statement stronger than Nike's, Apple's or Google's, while being as memorable. It is also colour and context neutral. Which was the last political campaign that had such a logo? This, I believe, reflects a larger problem with conservatives: branding. We've had such a hard time with our current brand (that being "George W for war Bush") that, even at a lower level, we've yet to pull out of it and come up with something flashy and fun.

Looking at the shirts that my dear Miss Bloom posted, it is obvious how badly in need of a good typographer the conservative movement finds itself. "While Jesus can beat up Allah," I say to myself while taking another sip and bobbing to my Twee Rock, "that doesn't forgive the use of a fuzzy typeface in which all A's are subscript." I guess that is supposed to make Him (or perhaps him, the naive designer of the shirt) look hard-core? I can only hope that Jesus, in His infinite compassion, will cause this typeface not to exist. And, while He is at it, if I can be so imposing, could He please ask MetroSpy not to used double-bordered italic script on their elephant shirt? Thanks, Jesus. (And while I'm at it, sorry for laughing at Dogma. Their rebranding of you was awful.)

More seriously, of the shirts that Tristyn linked to, only two were both clever and well-designed: that for the libertines and that for the fearless. In fact, the latter, which features the word "conservative" written in a clean, crisp typeface, is the only which I could actually see myself wearing. It is bold but not intrusive; poignant but not vulgar. It invites the sort of reasoned debate that even "We're going to bomb free the shit out of you" doesn't. Unfortunately, both these shirts are available through cafepress, and thus are ridiculously expensive.

So, having hit on my reason for the lack of cool, cool conservative shirts, and having finished my beer and thus being too lazy to think of more, I will leave with this advice: it is not the fault of the buyers, in this case, but a fault of the producers. Since few hip conservative shirts or slogans of any kind are being produced for the masses, few are being bought. I only hope that someone can come along and begin producing shirts such as this (clever!), this (ok, so I like tradition), or this, and selling them for a decent price.

(Being the work of a hipster, it is unclear how ironic the above paragraph is. That said, the author may be scheming plans to do what he preaches, but has to go rearrange his vinyl collection so can't talk any more about it.)

Labels: blasphemy, fashion, hipster

Adrian | 7:08 PM | 4 comments|