Politics Design by CARLOS SIMPSON
Political design, visual power and the archive of a changing world.
Politics Design is a political design project by Carlos Simpson exploring how stamps, posters, typography and visual culture communicate power, identity and political change. It considers political design as more than campaign branding, looking at how states, parties, media systems and public institutions use visual communication to frame authority, shape perception, construct public memory and make politics visible. Developed in response to Brexit, European political tensions and the United States elections, the project has evolved into a book, an online archive and a shop of limited-edition political stamp works.
Developed through Brexit, European politics, the United States elections and wider global political change.
A hybrid project combining editorial writing, political stamp works, public commentary and a published book.
How design frames political symbolism, persuasion, cultural memory and public meaning.
Explore Politics Design
Three ways into the project
Archive
The project archive
Essays, commentary, historical context, political themes, project notes and selected materials from the wider Politics Design body of work.
Browse the archiveShop
Political stamps and selected works
Limited-edition political stamps and related works built around influential politicians, elections, national identity and political moments.
Visit the shopThe Book
Politics Design: The Power of Political Stamps
A graphic study of political symbolism, authority and communication through postage stamp design, published by Carlos Simpson Design Studio.
Read about the bookProject artefact
An original Politics Design audio-visual piece
Politics Design is a political design project by Carlos Simpson examining how visual communication carries political meaning. Through stamps, posters, typography, symbolic imagery and related artefacts, the project explores how power, identity, nationalism and public persuasion are framed through graphic form. Developed from 2016 onwards across Brexit, European political tension and the United States election cycle, Politics Design brings together a published book, a website archive, political stamp works and wider visual commentary.
Why this remains on the homepage
This piece marks an important moment in the Politics Design project and remains visible as part of the site’s identity. It functions as an artefact from the project’s political and visual archive, capturing the tone of the work during a period defined by political transition, media saturation and heightened public symbolism.
Project context
Politics Design began as an experiment to test whether design could be pushed into political territory as visual commentary, symbolic intervention and public reflection. The website, book and stamp works that followed became a record of that experiment.
AI, design and political communication
Political communication now operates in a far more accelerated visual environment. Campaign graphics, symbolic assets and persuasive messaging can be produced at speed across multiple formats and audiences, with lower technical and financial barriers than before. Politics Design remains relevant because it helps frame an earlier but highly instructive question: how visual design, symbolic compression and media circulation shape political perception.
Power, trust and public ethics
The rise of synthetic media, automated image production and algorithmically amplified messaging has intensified long-standing questions about political persuasion, authenticity and public trust. Politics Design sits within that wider discussion by examining how visual artefacts carry authority, ideology and emotional force and how design participates in the construction of political meaning.
Project statement
The Politics Design project
Carlos Simpson Design is a multidisciplinary studio that was set up as an experiment to see if design could be pushed into new territories to make political and social change, and this project is a proven record of accomplishment.
The designer explores the importance and the power of political stamps and how governments in political transition use stamps to promote a new visual nationalism.
Politics Design is a series of limited-edition political stamps and posters by Carlos Simpson, the Creative Director of branding and digital at Carlos Simpson Design Studio – London. The website is particularly popular for those who are not just interested in politics but also intrigued by what is happening in today’s world.
Stamps are products of the state and provide a significant slice of information about a state’s heritage, culture, economy and place in the world. These depictions change over time, reflecting political and cultural changes and developments, and the technology and digital transformation of the role of the stamp remain essential.
Carlos Simpson believes that design is a way of solving problems, so that “value” can be completely absorbed by viewers because of design. Today, not only in Europe or the United States but more generally across the world, politics and communication have entered a stage in which visual design can be used to break traditional structures so that voters can see candidates’ value, positioning and symbolic appeal.
The Book
Politics Design: The Power of Political Stamps
Politics Design explores and portrays the power of political stamps in politics. It examines the importance and impact of marketing and graphic design as carriers of messages and tools of influence in political and cultural contexts.
With powerful visuals, the book portrays iconic moments in contemporary politics not only from Brexit, Europe and the United States, including Donald Trump, but also from the wider world. It sits within the wider Politics Design project, which includes the website archive, selected political stamp works and related commentary.
Themes
What Politics Design investigates
Political symbolism
How leaders, parties, states and ideologies are visually framed through symbols, portraiture, national imagery and graphic form.
Stamps as state communication
Postage stamps as carriers of heritage, authority, public messaging, cultural identity and visual nationalism.
Brexit, Europe and the United States
A design response to political rupture, electoral spectacle, Donald Trump, media intensity and contemporary public debate.
Typography, posters and persuasion
The role of graphic design, layout, repetition, compression and visual rhetoric in influencing civic perception.
Design, politics and public communication
Why political design matters
Politics Design treats political design as more than campaign graphics or election branding. It considers how states, parties, media systems and public institutions use visual communication to frame identity, shape perceptions, signal legitimacy and influence collective memory. From stamps and posters to editorial design and digital political culture, the project looks at how design helps make politics visible.
Recognition
Referenced across contemporary politics and media
Media, influence and information
The wider political moment behind the project
Being used for posters, signs, stickers and related outputs, the project relies heavily on typography, composition and visual framing. It emerged at a time when social networks, especially Twitter and Facebook, were playing an unusually fundamental role in elections both in Europe through the UK’s Brexit and in the United States through the emergence of Donald Trump as a dominant political figure.
From here, we can see how the constant bombardment and manipulation of information became central to these choices and their results. Everything happens with the force of a snowball that exists, yet remains poorly understood by many of us: a continuous war of messages, persuasion and media pressure. In that environment, Politics Design sits inside a period when fake news became an essential topic of social and political debate.
Frequently asked questions
Politics Design FAQ
Politics Design sits across publication, archive, political stamp works and visual commentary. These questions clarify what the project is, why design is political, and how the book, archive and wider body of work connect.
Politics Design is a political design project by Carlos Simpson exploring how graphic design, postage stamp imagery, public symbolism and visual communication shape power, identity, persuasion and cultural memory.
Design is political because it shapes how people encounter authority, institutions, public messages and collective identity. Typography, colour, layout, symbolism and visual framing influence what people notice, trust, remember and believe.
Stamps are state artefacts. They condense authority, identity, ideology, memory and public messaging into a compact designed form. Politics Design uses stamp imagery to examine how states and political cultures make power visible.
No. Stamps are the central entry point, but the project also considers posters, editorial design, campaign materials, political branding, media systems, public symbolism and digital political culture.
Graphic design influences political perception through visual hierarchy, repetition, image choice, typography, colour, composition and symbolic framing. These choices can signal legitimacy, urgency, authority, belonging or opposition.
The project examines political symbolism, state communication, Brexit, Europe, the United States, Donald Trump, media intensity, public persuasion, nationalism, propaganda and the relationship between visual culture and collective memory.
It is all three. The book presents the core publication, the website preserves the archive and project context, and the wider Politics Design project includes political stamp works, posters, visual commentary and related design artefacts.
Politics Design is for readers, designers, researchers, students, publishers, cultural commentators, political observers and institutions interested in the relationship between visual communication, democracy, identity, media and political culture.
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