The vivid blue campaign signs with bold orange lettering were impossible to miss as Zohran Mamdani made his historic and improbable run for New York City mayor this summer.
On storefront windows and telephone poles from Queens to the Bronx, the “Zohran for New York City” signs stood out from the standard red, white and blue campaign fodder. The lettering was seen by many as an intentional reference to old-school Bollywood posters — a subtle nod to Mamdani’s Indian heritage.
But Aneesh Bhoopathy, the Philadelphia-based graphic designer behind the visuals, said the campaign drew from the vibrant primary colors that help bodegas, yellow cabs, hot dog vendors and other small businesses stand out amid the city bustle.
The stylized font — with its drop shadow effect and vintage comic book look — was meant to evoke the old school, hand-painted signs that can still be found in some neighborhoods, he said.
“Succinctly, it’s New York,” said Bhoopathy, who previously lived in New York and helped on past campaigns for Mamdani and the Queens chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Mamdani’s best-known rival, ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, rebranded in the middle of his campaign. The Democrat began his mayoral runs with red, white and blue of his own and a decidedly unfussy font, inspired by the bumper stickers that President John F. Kennedy employed in 1960.
But after losing last month to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, Cuomo launched his general election campaign as a third-party candidate with a new logo that features the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty’s crown and pairs that image with a different color scheme: blue and orange — Mamdani’s colors but also those of the Knicks and Mets.
Mamdani, the community organizer who will be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, is the son of two well-known Indian American personalities — Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding” and other Hollywood movies).)
The aesthetic of the campaign was more than just a style, according to David Schwittek, a professor who teaches digital media and graphic design at Lehman College, a city-owned college in the Bronx.
“They summon the working-class fabric of New York City — the bodegas, cab cabs, halal carts, the things that don’t just feed the city but serve as its backdrop culturally,” he said.
The unabashedly retro tone, too, probably contributed to “positive associations of happier political times” for at least Democratic voters as well, said Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University who has researched the impact of branding on voters and consumers.
“It feels like something from a time that in many ways has passed, when politics was less divided and the Democrats were maybe a little more organized and successful,” he said.
The branding was reminiscent of the bold campaign font that became a signature look for U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another youthful liberal New Yorker who burst onto the political scene, said Richard Flanagan, a political science professor at College of Staten Island. Undefeated in Redeeming America.”
That theme harkened back to the Democrats’ posters for her shocking 2018 ousting of U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens, Bronx), who represented portions of Queens and the Bronx, which in turn relied on her roots and working-class New York .
The brightly colored, upward slanting lettering evoked prewar labor union designs, to some eyes; Lucha libre flyers from Mexico in others, particularly because it used an inverted exclamation point like the one in written Spanish.
“It’s hard to measure how much visual branding has contributed to Mamdani’s success, but it certainly gave him an identity and made him memorable in a crowded field of mayoral hopefuls in the beginning,” said Court Stroud, a marketing professor at New York University.
“The playfulness of his campaign design created a brand that supporters wanted to wear and share,” he said. “Mamdani’s team demonstrated how using visuals as a secret handshake can make politics seem real and community-oriented.
The same is true of Mamdani in terms of his campaign aesthetic; national campaign experts also cautioned that it was too soon to know if the designs used by Mamdani would be as lasting across different campaigns as Ocasio-Cortez’s unique look, which has now been widely adopted by progressive candidate branding.
“Candidates still rarely venture beyond the safety of the tried-and-true red, white, and blue,” said Lisa Burns, a professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
The enthusiasm for Mamdani’s designs made itself known during the New York City mayoral race, inspiring offbeat viral campaigns — a “Hot Girls for Zohran” merch line that model Emily Ratajkowski and other young celebs soon sported.
What I think the upshot of Mamdani’s visual coup here was simple, said Schwittek: effective branding isn’t generic — or safe! — but specific, and intentional.
“In the sea of sanitized political messaging, Mamdani’s visuals stick out because they mean something,” he said. “That’s the lesson.”
“Good campaign design also needs to be true in the ear of a candidate,” Bhoopathy said.
“None of this boldness and vibrancy works without a candidate that is as living and active as the city that raised me,” he said.
