Political branding is usually where creativity goes to die, and for good reason. When you’re trying to appeal to thousands (if not millions), the default recipe is predictable: safe colours, consumer-tested slogans, inoffensive typography. Which is exactly why Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign landed like a meteor and has set the political playbook on fire. It didn’t look “political,” (no forward-facing arrows on arced horizons – zero stars and stripes either). Rather, it looked like the love child of a 1970s Bollywood film poster and a bodega sandwich board.
And that’s what made this campaign feel like lighting in a bottle: it felt like something you actually wanted to sign up for.
Most coverage has framed Mamdani as a political upset. But from a branding perspective, it’s something far rarer – a lesson in how meaning, memory and audience understanding can create unstoppable momentum.
1. Build a brand that belongs, not just “stands out”
Most political brands try to differentiate within the category. Mamdani’s team flipped that logic: they built a brand that belonged to New York.
Decades earlier, Milton Glaser’s “I ♥ NY” mark reframed a crumbling city through optimism. It reframed all the strange, inconvenient, messy parts of New York as something loveable, to embrace. In recent years, that promise has felt strained by leadership geared toward capital, not communities.
Mamdani’s Bollywood-meets-bodega identity became a quiet revolt against that era – a new expression of “I love New York,” but drawn from the realities and experiences of the people who actually live there.
This mattered because it:
Made people feel seen in the mess, not just the myth
It reflected the New York people defend every day, even when the headlines don’t. Instead of leading with fear, it tapped into the stubborn pride New Yorkers have for their home. It says the city is still worth loving, if it remains affordable for the people who hold it up.
Reclaimed the visual language of everyday New Yorkers
Not the skyline, not the investors, not the tourism board. But the bodegas, subway cues, street posters and immigrant influences that define the city at ground level.
2. Design for Your Audience, Not the Commentators
Let’s dwell on those bodega signs for a moment.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of the Mamdani campaign is how locally encoded it is. Viewed from Australia, the posters read like retro Hollywood blockbusters — big typography, bold colour blocking, the visual grammar of 1960s epics. But that’s because we’re looking at it through our meaning framework, not New York’s.
Mark Batey’s Shared Meaning Hierarchy is useful here. At the base is common objective meaning — things anyone can identify. At the top sits idiosyncratic meaning — references only understood by a specific community. Mamdani’s brand sits intentionally at the higher, more subjective end of that pyramid.
The typography, colours and visual cues weren’t designed for global observers. They were designed for New Yorkers only — people who instinctively recognise:
The exact blue-yellow MetroCard palette
The visual cadence of bodega signage
The Bollywood-inflected poster layouts
The hand-painted vernacular of neighbourhood storefronts
The system was crafted by designer Aneesh Bhoopathy, who drew directly from these everyday visual cues not as decoration, but as a way of speaking in the language New Yorkers already use and understand.
Kudos to this design strategy, it’s semiotics 101: the tighter the cultural encoding, the narrower the audience but the deeper the impact. It’s a strategic choice many brands avoid because it limits universality. Mamdani embraced it. Yes, it carries risk. Visual codes this specific can be alienating to anyone outside the geography. But for those inside it, the only people who mattered, a campaign felt made for them, not for the national media or political class.
3 .Design a disciplined system, then let the crowd run with it
For all its exuberance, Mamdani’s brand was not chaotic. It was a tight, highly controlled system:
A limited but loud palette – the same vivid blue, yellow and orange across posters, buttons, banners and merch
A recognisable wordmark and “Z” lock-up that played differently on everything from tote bags to digital tiles, but was always instantly him
Simple, legible message ladders – from “Freeze the rent” to “Fast & free buses” – laid out like transit maps, turning policy into wayfinding
The magic came when that system hit the street. Because fundraising rules prevented the campaign from selling merchandise, they gave it away. Volunteers screen-printed shirts, supporters wore the brand as a badge of identity, and “Hot Girls for Zohran” style collectives sprang up organically. The brand was built to be shared, worn and remixed without ever losing coherence.
This is supporter-generated content by design, not accident. A lesson for any brand: if a thousand fans made their own assets tomorrow, would they still look like you? If not, your system isn’t tight enough
So what can brand leaders actually do with this?
You don’t have to be running for mayor of New York to apply these principles. If you are leading a brand right now – in FMCG, finance, tech or government – here are the questions we’d be asking in your next leadership offsite:
Where does our brand belong in people’s lives?
Map the cultural, visual and emotional codes of that world. Are you using them, or ignoring them in favour of category clichés?
Are we designing for somebody or everybody?
If you design for everyone, you dilute your meaning. If you design for the people who matter, you build a brand they feel ownership of.
Is our system strong enough to have your fans run with it?
If your biggest fans created their own posters or memes tomorrow, would they still be unmistakably you? If not, tighten your assets and simplify your rules.
A bright spot in a dark time
At a time when the world feels particularly divided, pessimistic and politically exhausted, it’s no surprise the Mamdani campaign has become one of the most talked-about stories on the planet. People are desperate for a bright spot. Something human, hopeful and rooted in community.
Zohran Mamdani probably wasn’t reading LinkedIn case studies between subway stops. But his campaign has given marketers and brand leaders something rare: a real-time demonstration of what happens when you design with real people in mind.
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Written by Amber Bonney - Founder & CEO, The Edison Agency and Calin Barker - Strategist, The Edison Agency
