24/03/2026
The visual identity that helped win New York City’s mayoral race — and it’s a masterclass in design.
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign look was built by Aneesh Bhoopathy , a South Indian American designer and worker-owner at Forge — a Philadelphia-based design co-op he co-runs. Bhoopathy had been working with Mamdani since his 2020 Assembly race and brought something most political branding never does: a real sense of place.
The palette — taxicab yellow, MetroCard blue, bodega red — isn’t random. It’s the visual language of New York streets. The hand-lettered wordmark, with its drop shadows and bold serifs, reads like vintage Bollywood poster meets old-school bodega signage. Not because it’s trying to be cute — but because both share the same ancestor: hand-painted sign traditions from across the world.
The campaign poster itself was designed by Tyler Evans, AOC’s current creative director and former Bernie Sanders design director, who took Forge’s identity system and turned it into something that looked more like a concert poster than a political flyer.
This is what happens when design stops trying to look “official” and starts speaking the actual language of the people it’s for. Strong visual identity doesn’t just look good — it wins.
