PPLD

The Project

The PPLD was assembled by Jae-Jae Spoon and Matthias Avina with the help of undergraduate and graduate research assistants at the University of Pittsburgh.

The database is a systematic visual archive of political party logos from 18 Western European democracies, spanning from 1980 to the present day. Each logo is catalogued by country, party, and election year, making it possible to trace how parties have represented themselves visually over time and to compare visual strategies across national and ideological contexts.

Why Logos?

Political party logos are among the most deliberate forms of political communication. In a single mark, a party encodes its ideology, its heritage, its target electorate, and its ambitions. When parties rebrand, they signal something: a shift in strategy, a break with the past, a bid for new voters, or a response to electoral defeat.

The PPLD makes these visual histories available for systematic study for the first time at this scale, enabling researchers to investigate questions about political communication, party strategy, and voter perception that could previously only be addressed anecdotally.

Coverage

The database currently covers 18 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Logos are drawn from national legislative elections, with coverage varying by country and party from 1980 through 2024. All logos are drawn from national legislative elections.

Acknowledgements

The PPLD would not have been possible without the dedicated work of undergraduate and graduate research assistants at the University of Pittsburgh who helped locate, verify, and catalogue logos across 18 countries and more than four decades. We are grateful for their contributions.

Articles Using PPLD Data

Avina, Matthias and Jae-Jae Spoon. 2025. "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Political Party Logos and Logo Change." Party Politics. On-Line First.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13540688251397754

Avina, Matthias and Jae-Jae Spoon. 2025. "From Torches to Trees: Political Party Logo Changes and Voter Perception." Party Politics. 31.4: 779-789.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13540688241247149

Using the PPLD in Your Research

If you use the database in your work, please cite the relevant publication(s) or use the following citation:

Avina, Matthias and Jae-Jae Spoon. 2026. Political Parties Logo Database. https://politicalpartieslogos-database.github.io/PPLD/

We are always happy to hear how the data is being used.

The database covers 1,100+ logos from 18 European countries spanning elections from 1980 through 2024. All logos are catalogued by country, party, and election year.