Portraits of Hardworking People: How Manifestos Picture Us

By Jon Abbott

Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto

Source: Labour 2015 Manifesto

As the two leading parties rush to the centre ground in a bid to convince the few swing voters, a bizarre game of cross-dressing has taken hold: the Conservatives have rebranded as the party of working people and Labour are touting themselves as the party of economic responsibility. The homogeneous rhetoric is being backed up by manifestoes that employ a visual language so similar its uncanny.


The medium of the day is photography but there’s not an Instagram filter in sight, because these are honest images of hardworking people. But hardworking doesn’t simply have to mean economic work – we all know how challenging life can be when trying to bring up a small family. Of course, not an irresponsibly large family or a family with ugly teenagers but a young family, preferably with one child (two at a push).

Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto

Source: Labour 2015 Manifesto

Source: Conservative 2015 Manifesto

To give them some credit, there is a slight difference in approach. The Conservatives have gone for the action shot, providing a window onto the quotidian tasks of hardworking people: talking, herding, screwing, smiling, soldering and choosing. Labour, on the other hand, have plumped for static portraits of hardworking people, equipped with the tools of their respective trades: the hard hat, the paint brush, the comb and scissors, the pen, the glasses. Perhaps the only hint at ideology is conveyed through their choice of healthcare professional – the bourgeois doctor versus the proletariat nurse.

Source: Labour 2010 Manifesto

Source: Conservative 2010 Manifesto

Source: Conservative 2010 Manifesto

If we look back the 2010 election manifestos, the visual languages were again similar but perhaps a little more divergent than 2015. Bright colours and child-like illustration elucidated Labour’s core policies whilst the Tories utilised info graphics and graphic sloganeering to communicate to their concept of the big society (whatever happened to that?).


With the two largest parties producing manifestos that are barely distinguishable from corporate annual reports, and their leaders espousing trite soundbites, is it any wonder that their share of the vote is in decline? If there are positives to be drawn from this woeful homogeneity then it must surely be that the freshly vacated fringes are now occupied by smaller parties with something a little more distinctive to say.


Jon Abbott is a senior designer at Barnbrook, one of the most well-known graphic design studios in Britain, operating in the fields of art, culture and commerce.