In case you hadn’t noticed it’s the general election this week. I thought I’d take some time to have a look at the 3 main parties downloadable PDF manifestos, compare and offer a non political design critique.
In all versions I felt that the PDF files were a straight rip (without printers marks) from the printable versions. It would have been good to make the most of a PDF’s (Portable Document Format) capabilities and use features like linking up the the table of contents for ease of navigation. This would have been really useful for the epic Conservative offering of 131 pages of single page spreads. In alphabetical order, here are my thoughts:
Conservative
Number of pages: 131 (single page spreads)
Download size: 79.3MB (hi res) 3.2MB (low res)
Main typeface usage: Times New Roman
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Summary: Overall I thought this was an extensive and text heavy document. I felt it was difficult to find the key party objectives. The cover design was what I expected from the Conservative party but it used an odd pattern texture that made it look a bit amateurish.
The manifesto does contain some great illustrations and has a consistent style throughout which I thought worked really well.
The typography was clear and well spaced in my opinion although it could have done with being broken up in places.
Labour
Number of pages: 78 (single page spreads)
Download size: 1.4MB
Main typeface usage: Neo Sans Pro and Baskerville
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Summary: The cover of the Labour manifesto has an odd Soviet style illustration showing a young family looking across the countryside into the sunset (or sunrise?). Although it’s the brightest cover of all three it feels a little ‘cult like’ and uneasy.
The table of contents was very cramped and the simple line drawing illustrations (of which the larger versions appear at the start of each section) don’t help. The colour coding would have been sufficient on the TOC page.
The font choice of Neo Sans Pro for headings and Baskerville for body text is good and is generally well spaced and easy to read.
Each section has been colour coded and the start page contains a simple line drawing illustration which I’m not sure works too well. The PDF is littered with empty pages which I assume is left over from the print layout. This would be annoying if I’d decided to print this out at home.
Liberal Democrat
Number of pages: 112 (double page spreads)
Download size: 852KB
Main typeface usage: Helvetica Neu
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Summary:The cover of the Liberal Democrat manifesto focuses on their ’4 steps to a fairer Britain’ and the simplicity works well. Yet again the PDF seems to be a rip of a print version so we open with a blank page which could be annoying if I wanted to print this at home.
The table of contents is clear although not linked again. I have an issue with the attempt at personalisation by using handwriting at the start and end of the intro and I would have probably opted to get straight to point as ‘Dear Friend’ might put some people off.
The ’4 steps’ is a very clear way to focus on your objectives and placing them into 4 boxes filling the page works well.
Typography is good, well spaced and easy to read but I feel the stock images mixed in with the original party photos lets the document down. The index at the back of the document is a good idea and something the other parties PDF’s lacked.
Brilliant topic idea, great to incorporate design into the current never ending coverage of the election. This however was actually of interest as opposed to some of the generic, tiresome and boring coverage that you often find on election issues.
Thanks very much for the feedback Jared.
Interesting topic and i’d like to see the billboards side by side for a comprehensive design comparison. One thought though, I wouldn’t class the Labour cover as ‘Soviet’ style. It’s more British Modernist like the travel posters put out by the railways between the wars.