This week, the Mexican people witnessed a historic event: the inauguration of Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum as Mexico's first female president. In her speech, she emphasized the importance of her title as "presidentA" (in Spanish, the title "president" is gendered for both female and male), reminding us that "what is not named, does not exist". This statement is highly relevant, not only in political terms, but also in how we structure reality through language.

As a graphic designer, I find myself reflecting on this point. While I applaud the power of language to give visibility to historically marginalized groups, I also believe that many things exist and have an impact without necessarily being formally named. They exist in our minds, through our associations, and take shape through visual symbols that don’t always need words. A good example of this is the color red.

Red, as we know, is a color full of meaning. In traffic, it is a command: stop. In other contexts, it can be a warning of danger, while in marketing, we associate it with attraction or urgency. Just look at food and beverage brands, where red predominates, to understand how this color has been designed to influence our decisions and emotions without us even thinking about it.

This phenomenon led me to reflect on Mike Monteiro's book Ruined by Design, a sharp critique of design ethics and its impact on society. Monteiro emphasizes something crucial: designers have enormous responsibility in creating products and systems, and our decisions can have profound consequences.

A key quote from his book is:

"The world works exactly the way we design it. The combustion engine, which is destroying the atmosphere of our planet, works exactly as it was designed. The weapons, which cause deaths, work exactly as they were designed. And every time we 'improve' their design, they become more effective at killing."

This statement is powerful, and it should make us reflect on the power we have as visual creators and how our decisions impact the world around us. If we extend this concept to the political context, it seems imposing that every time a new political party takes power, their graphic and visual identity becomes omnipresent, almost as if the entire country's visual infrastructure were hijacked by a single color and logo.

Think of the color maroon, which we will likely see everywhere for the next six years, or how each municipality or state adopts the color of the dominant party. This phenomenon of visual exploitation is not always executed with the quality it deserves, but, nonetheless, it invades public, private, and digital spaces.

Here’s where I want to delve into something that has existed for many years: the lack of visual neutrality in Mexican politics. This is a topic that even my mother remembers from her youth, when people were told to "vote for the flag," referring to the dominant party at the time, whose visual identity was so entwined with the official discourse that it was practically synonymous with the government. This has created a powerful visual association, where colors and logos not only represent a party, but come to replace the narrative of the true needs of the people. The lack of neutrality in visual elements is so strong that the party’s identity overrides the institutional one.

And here we return to the beginning: "what is not named, does not exist." In this case, what is not visually questioned still exists because our mental associations have already done their work. Monteiro clearly expresses it: the world works as we design it, and this is also true in the political sphere. If my municipality is blue, I will see blue everywhere; if it is orange, the same happens. And if it’s maroon… well, you know what will happen.

Personally, I believe political branding should be agnostic. We don’t need to be visually bombarded to remember which party is in power. Rather, design should focus on the real needs of the people, not on creating a graphic identity that only serves to reinforce a party’s image. However, the predominance of partisan visual identities seems so ingrained in our political culture that we are still not ready for that conversation.

The power of design goes beyond words and logos. The colors, shapes, and mental associations we generate through design have a profound impact on how we perceive the world. While politics continues to use these visual tools to perpetuate power, it would be ideal for designers to start creating proposals that transcend partisan agendas and truly serve the collective good.