Democratic National Convention is one of two main convention series in the political life of the United States of America. The convention takes place every four years, with the first event being held in 1832. At the meeting the Democratic Party of the USA nominees its candidate for president of the country.
The Democratic National Convention is a series of political events where most delegates are required to vote for a politician as a candidate for president and vice president of the United States.
The first political convention in the United States was held in 1831 when the Antimasonic Party met in a Baltimore saloon to select candidates and make up the platform on which they would run. The following year, in 1832, the Democrats met in the same saloon to determine their candidates. Since then, the major parties and most small parties have held statewide nominating conventions where state delegates are present to select their presidential and vice-presidential candidates and agree on party positions.
Usually, by the time of the National Convention, the winner of the intra-party race is already obvious, so the Republican and Democrat conventions are more of a formality and a tribute to tradition. Sometimes, however, a situation arises where no single candidate is determined by the end of the primary. Then the result is determined by debate and a new vote among the party delegates.
The most interesting thing about this is that the elected delegates are actually obliged to give their vote at the national congress to a certain candidate, i.e. to fulfill the will of the voters, but besides the elected delegates, the so-called unbound delegates come to national party congresses, who make up about 15% of the total number of congress participants and can vote for any presidential candidate.
Usually, these are the highest-ranking members of the party. In the Democratic Party, “unbound delegates” are called “superdelegates” and include, in addition to party leaders, a number of “additional unbound delegates” from rank-and-file state representatives. That is, at the level of the National Convention, the decisive vote belongs not to ordinary Americans, but to the party leadership, which has enormous leverage over the situation.
And only after the conventions, three debates of candidates for president and one debate of candidates for vice president did the election of the head of the United States itself take place.
What is Democratic National Convention?
The Democratic National Convention is one of the major events in the U.S. political system in which the Democratic Party formally nominates its candidates for president and vice president. The convention has been held every four years since 1832.
In terms of visual identity, each Democratic National Convention has its logo, and they are usually very different from each other, apart from the blueish color palette with red accents, which stands for freedom and democracy.
The logo, designed for the Democratic National Convention, held in 2012, was executed in a bright red and blue color palette, with an enlarged circular emblem set against a plain white background above the tagline with the name of the convention and its location, Charlotte, North Carolina. The emblem depicted a silhouette of a crowd, set in red, with a thick blue arched frame above it. The lettering is set in the same color palette, as the graphical part, with the two upper lines in blue capitals, and the bottom — in small red ones.
For the Democratic National Convention of 2016, the visual identity concept was completely redesigned. The new badge was based on an enlarged four-leveled inscription in navy-blue, with the red “Philadelphia” tagline, separated from the main text by a thin horizontal line. The zero in “2016” was replaced by a solid blue drawing of The Liberty Bell, the symbol of the struggle of the United States of America for its independence. The Liberty Bell is the pride of Philadelphia.
In 2020, the Democratic National Convention was taking place in Milwaukee. Its logo was also based on the lettering, but with the characters emboldened, and the top line enlarged. The “D20” line was stylized, with the white and sky-blue five-pointed star replacing the negative space of the “D”, and the white contour of the USA map on the dark blue zero in “20”. The star of the “D” also has an interesting detail — a light blue arrowhead, pointing to the right, into the future.
The bold geometric lettering from the logo of the Democratic National Convention was set in a modern yet simple sans-serif typeface, with distinctive contours of the title case characters. The closest fonts to the one, used in this insignia, are, probably, Sequel Sans Display Heavy, or Europa Grotesk Nr 2 SH ExtraBold.
As for the color palette of the DNC 20 visual identity, it is based on the patriotic combination of navy-blue, sky-blue, red, and white, with the shortened version of the badge having the digit “2” set in red.