The sign language of election season

Melissa Schorr

Thursday, June 11, 1998 | 10:14 a.m.

Election season is in full flurry, and that means roadside campaign signs are proliferating about as fast as pledges and platitudes. Do the signs persuade you? Annoy you? Provide traffic-jam reading material? Or not even register?

We sat down with some experts who design and strategize these signs for a "Campaign Critique" of which signs of the season get their vote -- and which ones should have been sent back to the drawing board.

Our panel:

Bob Ingram -- art director at Oram, Ingram & Zurawski, one of the city's oldest political advertising agencies. Currently handling the Kenny Guinn, Erin Kenny and Myron Leavitt campaigns.

Marc Sperberg -- partner in Kohler Sperberg & Rivera Inc., a political advertising firm currently handing the Republican Assembly Caucus. Sperberg has managed campaigns for politicians including Erin Kenny and city councilman Larry Brown.

Dan Sakowski -- sales and marketing manager for Laser Graphics, a sign printing firm. Also owner of Fox Graphic Consulting, his private political consulting firm. Working with several campaigns, including Guinn's.

Tom Ayres -- director of field operations with with Paladin Advertising Agency, which is handling several political campaigns including Terry Care for state senate and County Commissioner Myrna Williams. Paladin also rents out signs to various campaigns, including Guinn's.

JESSI WINCHESTER for Lt. Governor:

Ayres: I have to say, I love living in a state where a former prostitute can run for Lieutenant Governor.

Sakowski: I'm glad I didn't do this one.

Ingram: That was obviously not designed by a designer, it was designed by a sign company. It's a very cluttered design, and the last name is too small -- never put a long name all in capital.

Sperberg: If I had to sum this up in one word, it would be "busy." There's so many things going on, I think someone felt they would get their money's worth out of all the white space.

Ayres: Sometimes, less is more.

LORRAINE HUNT for Lieutenant Governor:

Ingram: I think the photograph is correct for the office. She comes across as fairly conservative but with taste. Overall, I think the sign is good. If I didn't know her, I'd say, she looks decent to me, she gets her vote.

Sperberg: A lovely lady inside and out, and I think the sign portrays that. The photo says that. The logo is excellent -- the dual entendres, the ribbon could be a road, it could be a waving flag, it creates the Nevada shape up in the right. It's excellent work -- I wish I did it.

AARON RUSSO for Governor

Ingram: Russo is not the most idealistic politician, in looks. He looks more like a crook. So they probably made that decision not to put his face on there just for that purpose.

Sperberg: I wouldn't have given them enough credit to have thought through that decision -- but that was the end result.

Ingram: It doesn't have the 'I want to vote for this person' quality that the Lorraine Hunt sign had. But it is legible. It's not a sign that knocks my socks off -- but it's not a bad sign.

Sperberg: It's simple. It could be worse, it's succinct. The consensus is: some minor tweaking could be done, but it's not a bad sign at all.

KENNY GUINN for Governor

Sperberg: The best part of that is the photo of Kenny Guinn. The design is exceptional, it's clean and clear, but the credit needs to go to the photographer. That sign is all about the photo. Everybody knows the dress-for-success power-look Kenny. They're trying to portray this is a really regular man in all senses. The open collar says, "that is a good guy."

Sakowski: That picture there is everybody's dad.

Ayres: It's very humanizing.

Sperberg: He might have paid up to $10,000 for that design, and he got the best consultants in the state advising him, and his sign couldn't be more simple: awesome picture, simple words. What he bought was for the designers to figure out how to get the message out, and the message was friendly, likable, like your father. I think it was worth every penny he paid.

CHUCK LEE for Sheriff

Sperberg: We've debated this sign in my office endlessly. I misread this sign. I loved it the first time I saw it, because I thought it broke out of the box, it was extremely creative. I thought this was chic and cutting edge. Then everybody, especially the secretaries and women in my office, said, "I wouldn't vote for that guy, he looks like Lucifer! That thing scares the hell out of small children!"

Sakowski: It's like a floating head.

Ayres: It's not a nice warm picture. They went for Dirty Harry.

Ingram: The thing that popped out on me is the negative -- that face is a symbol, and you have no defense against symbols. You either like him or you don't, and when I looked at him, I didn't like him. This guy looks like Big Brother. He looks like he would prosecute you for a misdemeanor, and everybody out there has done misdemeanors. And he's a good looking guy, with the white hair, he's got everything going for him -- they just used the wrong picture. The crop is bad. I would have pulled him back, cut off the top of his head, I would have shown a necktie on him.

Sperberg: The goal was to be progressive and sinister. The message is there's a new guy in town and he's tough, he's going to take no prisoners. The problem is, I don't know people are ready to go that far with law enforcement.

Ingram: Graphically, its not a bad sign. But what they tried to accomplish and what they succeeded (in) doing are two different things.

Sakowski: It portrays what they wanted to portray, but it's the wrong message.

ERIN KENNY, County Commission

Sperberg: (laughing) I think it wins best sign of the year again. This won best sign of the year in '94 (under his direction). The photo is updated. In the first photo, I was not there for the shoot, and she wore the same hoop earings, and I got furious, because I hated them. Hoops on women, they should be chewing gum. We edited the hoops out last time, and she left them in this time and I called her on the photo, and said "You left the darn hoops in there!"

Ingram: You wear a shirt you think looks good, and half the people will say it looks like crap.

Sakowski: The angle of the "Y" and the "K" is very visually appealing.

DR. JOHN ELLERTON for University Regent

Ingram: He looks like a friendly minister, giving last rites on a guy he's buried. (And) there's not enough contrast here, in the colors.

Sakowski: There's too much body.

Ayres: They should have cropped it, from below the shoulders on up.

JENNIFER TOGLIATTI for Justice of the Peace

Ingram: She looked like she just spotted her husband with another girl across the room. She looks too stern. She needs a compassionate look.

Sakowski: I don't know if a JOP race has to have someone that serious.

Ayres: I didn't care for the picture. I know she's blond and wears glasses, but I'm still not sure what she looks like. I would have liked a bigger photo, or go larger on the name.

Sakowski: I think a name like that, you gotta lose the photo.

Sperberg: A lot could have been done with that look to portray a young, professional woman -- they missed the mark. I'd have shot her in a way where she'd come off as anything but sexy, she would have come off "L.A. Law." You can make a woman look sophisticated and clean cut without sexy coming into it.

Ingram: She just barely missed it. Everything is very strong, the only thing that photo misses is the human aspect.

LYNETTE MCDONALD for Assembly District 2

Sperberg: She is not Irish. She's a friend of mine, a black lady who is the public information officer for UNLV. Lovely lady. Bright, intelligent -- but she's not Irish. It's sure been a question around our office. (Shrugs.) Maybe she'll get the Irish vote.

MELODIE C. SWANSON for District Court Judge

Ayres: I thought (the swirl) was graffiti the first time I saw it. Since then, I figured out it's a swan.

Sperberg: It's busy, trying too hard. Very stylish -- if you like style. It is professionally done, my guess is it was done by an advertising agency and not someone in political advertising. It's a little fluffy and lacks function.

Sakowski: A tremendous amount of competing graphic images. And lose the check mark.

BOB LUECK for Family Court

Sperberg: Oy vey.

Sakowski: (sarcastically) I think we've established some contrast here.

Ingram: It looks as if it might have been hand done by a monk.

Sakowski: I don't know why "Restore Integrity" is so big, it should have been left off. And "elect" twice? Are we trying to achieve balance? It makes no sense.

Sperberg: Restore integrity: is it broken? Who lost it? These are things people toss onto signs and they mean nothing. That's a candidate I would not manage. Because in my mind that's someone who made a fatally flawed mistake at step one of running for office, which is getting quality people to help you. That says he thinks he can do it on his own.

GENIE OHRENSCHALL, Assembly District 12

Sperberg: This is a woman who has gone through six months of hell over her being an unfit mother. If I were handling that campaign, I would soften her image with feminine colors, friendlier signage. She needed an image revamp in her materials, and honestly, this missed the mark.

Sakowski: She needs a painting and cleaning. She's got name recognition, she just needs to get it more positive.

Ingram: You've got to be careful with yellow. People think it's associated with positive things, like the sun, but it's also associated with urine and sickness. If you're going to use yellow, it should be pastel.

Sperberg: That is an ugly sign, those are ugly colors.

Ayres: I have a feeling a lot of these are leftovers. And some are hand-painted.

Sperberg: She's an incumbent, I don't buy the budget constraints. If I were handling her, I would throw out everything to do with the old Genie and I would revisit her entire image.

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The final poll? Kudos to Lorraine Hunt, Erin Kenny, and Kenny Guinn for clear, polished and appealing campaign signs, while the cluttered, misdirected, and blaring designs of Jessi Winchester, Genie Ohrenschall, and Bob Lueck lose by a landslide.

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