Election Poster Critique, version québécoise

So I did finally manage to get all of my photos of the four more significant parties in the Québec election, to take place on Monday. I mostly went with the 'leader' posters (this is a rather disturbing tendency, considering we don't vote directly for the leaders, but for the representatives in our districts), with one little exception right off the top where the leader poster was completely different from the candidate posters for the same party. I even found (mostly) unadulterated versions. Here is my lovely critique of each of them, in alphabetical order by the name of the party in French.

Action Démocratique du Québec

First up is the leader poster, where they are trying to make it look like 'our pal' Mario has autographed it for us. This is really quite a vain one, and a big target for poster defacers. The version seen here has only the purple sticker added on the bottom, adapting to party slogan into a call for more support for education.

Here is the candidate version for this party. It's a funny thing, but for quite a long period when I looked at their posters, I read "Donnez-nous le pouvoir" (Give us the power) instead of "Donnez-vous le pouvoir" (Give yourself the power). Either way, it just gives me the creeps, but that is likely a larger analysis of this most right-wing party's ideas.

Parti Liberal du Québec

The thing that I have found amusing and yet disconcerting about this party's poster is their strange slogan: "L'économie d'abord OUI" (Economy first, YES). My disconcertion is not about putting the economy first, but about seeing a "OUI" on a red background. For us, with our politics often centred around the question of Québec nationalism, the OUI is usually on a blue background, so the red usurpation of the positive seems oddly out of place.

Their logo is just plain ugly.

And look, I didn't say anything about the crazy hair of the leader! (Oops!)

Parti Québécois


Now this one looks like some kind of religious iconography, with the light shining down on Sainte Pauline and illuminating her face in a quite flattering way. I certainly don't expect anyone to put an unflattering picture on an election poster, but the lighting is a bit over the top. I should add that she doesn't look one bit tired in this photo. ;-)

I continue to be puzzled by the change to the party logo. You can see the new one in the photo above and the old one here:

I get replacing the red tail of the Q with a green one — everyone wants to give the impression of being green these days. But I continue to be disconcerted by the change in orientation of the end of the tail of the Q: vertical in the new one, horizontal in the old one. What does this mean?

I am oddly drawn to the wacky little graphic element of the white circle echoed by the party logo, which is repeated on most of the formats of the candidate posters, but unfortunately not all. I think it is supposed to make us think of the circle on the ballot in which we must make our mark, but that just came to me now, weeks after first seeing it.

My other comment was: too many fonts on a single poster! I count at least three, and that is just too busy for me.

Québec Solidaire

Look! It's a two-headed party! Yes, there are co-leaders of the party and they even have separate sections on the party web site, which is fascinating. When they were not included in the debate, it was only Françoise David (on the left) who did a gruelling online debate participation with updates every couple of minutes as she responded live to the questions the other leaders were answering on network television. As you might gather from their name and this leadership configuration, this is the most left-wing party. While the poster is sort of 'designed' looking, it is quite utilitarian and betrays the fact that they probably don't have a ton of money for graphic designers or printing costs.
I even heard that some of their candidate posters are recycled from the last time around (we had elections only a year and a half ago — but that's a whole other story) with some stickers applied to freshen up the messaging.

Why no Parti Vert (Green Party)? Well, they're quite marginal in Québec politics, with several other parties incorporating green elements into their platforms. I saw a tiny poster for their local candidate last week, but didn't have my camera with me at the time. The poster seems to have disappeared since then.