Tuesday, December 16, 2008
2008 Porn for Design and/or Politics Nerds
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 9:15 AM
The story of how Barack Obama's logo arrived at this:
After detours through this:
And this:
Told here in two parts, the first of which is the most interesting:
And the second of which is here.
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2
The other finalist, the voice bubbles, is horrible as well. To be honest, I don't like the winner either. I'd pick these guys to do my corporate identity maybe but for politics they're boobs. It's cheese, and it didn't contribute to his win.
3
The other finalists suck and the guy comes off as a major douche. But I do think the chosen logo is great.
4
Are you kidding me? Fnarf, most of the time I think you're smarter than my professors and more logical than a Vulcan, but the final logo is incredible and did a lot for Obama. There's just about no image that could scream "the future is coming and it is BRIGHT" than that American-flag/sunrise/O logo. The other two are absolutely awful.
5
I'm a fan of the final design. The O as a sun coming up over a field creates an association with a new dawn in politics, and the softer color palette subliminally associates Obama with a less extreme political stance- both great, yet subtle design choices.
7
I can't believe "O8AMA" made it past the laser printer. It could've (and would've) been altered with a Sharpie to "OSAMA" in about 5 seconds.
The final logo's fantastic. The execution even better. We'd likely have a President Hillary right now without it.
The final logo's fantastic. The execution even better. We'd likely have a President Hillary right now without it.
8
@3: Douche? What? The guys seems thoughtful and reasonable. What was douchey about him? If anything, he was a bore.
The final logo was smart and worked and I agree with @4 that Fnarf misses this one. The logo helped the campaign. It explained a lot in a simple way and was visionary enough, yet traditional enough.
The final logo was smart and worked and I agree with @4 that Fnarf misses this one. The logo helped the campaign. It explained a lot in a simple way and was visionary enough, yet traditional enough.
9
Are you folks all in marketing? The final logo was indeed designed to create those "visionary" feelings in people who have been trained to respond to that kind of sledgehammer marketing effect, but in reality? It's just a logo. Yeah, yeah, sunrise, hope, road to the future, yadda yadda. I GET IT. But it doesn't mean anything.
10
@9
Not to enlightened philosophizers of the interbutts such as yourself, but to the general public it probably had at least a mild effect.
Not to enlightened philosophizers of the interbutts such as yourself, but to the general public it probably had at least a mild effect.
11
I think the way the final logo succeeded is that it worked as a quick identifier of Obama, kind of like how you see the CBS eye or a target, you think of the brands attached to those symbols. I agree with Fnarf, the ideas behind the logo are pure cheese, but it was enough of a success just that if you saw that logo, you'd think of the man it symbolized. Did McCain have a logo? If he did, I'm forgetting it, but I saw that O on a ton of pumpkins, spray-painted stencils, etc.
12
The world is divided a lot of ways, but the clearest line to me has always been between people who get the importance of good graphic design, and those who don't.
13
Obama is a slave of World Zionism. All you white-guilt Seattle liberals who love him are a bunch of totally naive fools.
Remember this post in a couple of years and you will see just how totally accurate I am. When your Obasm wears off maybe you will wake up to reality.
Remember this post in a couple of years and you will see just how totally accurate I am. When your Obasm wears off maybe you will wake up to reality.
14
I "almost" like the logo. One thing, though. Those of us old enough to remember the Reagan years also remember the famous line: "It's morning in America". That's what I always think of when I see the logo - Reagan.
15
Ugh. For me the Obama logo has always just overwhelmingly made me feel like I'm looking at a print ad for a new pharmaceutical product or high-fiber breakfast food marketed to retirees.
And did they use the new Microsoft cleartype fonts, or does it just look like they did? So comfortably bland.
And did they use the new Microsoft cleartype fonts, or does it just look like they did? So comfortably bland.
16
Dangerously similar to the Bank of America logo, almost bordering on a copy. But they succeeded in making a symbol that just about everyone in America could instantly identify.
I agree that this guy is about the least energetic speaker imaginable. I LIVE for logo design, but I couldn't make it through this video.
More interesting would be an interview with the idiot who designed the yellow-on-black McCain logo. Now THAT was a disaster.
I agree that this guy is about the least energetic speaker imaginable. I LIVE for logo design, but I couldn't make it through this video.
More interesting would be an interview with the idiot who designed the yellow-on-black McCain logo. Now THAT was a disaster.
17
This story seems to be spreading rapidly thorough the design world and it's exciting to see that logo news is so popular. Congrats to Sol for his accomplishments. There are so many different directions that you can take with a political design such as this and he did a nice job and proved himself as a designer.
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