Notebook sold in one School supply Vending machine

from the Columbia Tribune:

Pencils and notebooks resembling President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign ads have been sold in at least one Columbia school and other public schools, causing the company that distributes the materials to travel around the state yanking the supplies out of machines.

“Don’t be mad at us,” said Greg Jones, a sales representative with Pencil Wholesale. “It was a total accident.”

Pencil Wholesale distributes supplies to six Columbia schools: Parkade Elementary, Cedar Ridge Elementary, Paxton Keeley Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Smithton Middle School and Hickman High School, said Linda Quinley, the district’s chief financial officer.

At Mill Creek, at least one pencil and a notebook with designs similar to Obama campaign advertisements have been sold out of a supply machine. Two families have complained about the politically tinged materials.

Three Missouri schools have contacted Jones since the beginning of the school year asking that the materials be removed, and Mill Creek Principal Mary Sue Gibson this week said she also planned to call Pencil Wholesale.

For Full Post: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/dec/03/supplies-with-obama-logo-surprise-school/

Veterans Day Poster, 2009, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with a hat tip to http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/veterans-day-2009-heres-the-poster/ An enhanced image as well as posters from prior years can be found at http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/gallery.asp.  The high resolution image http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/poster/09poster_highres.jpg shows that the flying flags stars are not stars but rather some odd looking circles that sort of resemble the Obama famous “O’ logo!  Oh my.

The Veterans Day National Ceremony is at 11:00 AM ET on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery.  http://www.va.gov/ A color guard, made up of members from each of the military services, renders honors to America’s war dead during a tradition-rich ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The ceremony takes place inside the Memorial Amphitheater.

Let’s hope that President Obama can keep the day straight.

Last year Barack Obama made the mistake of recognizing dead veterans in the audience during his Memorial Day speech in Las Cruces, New Mexico:   On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today – our sense of patriotism is particularly strong. Memorial Day, of course, is a time to commemorate U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. On Veterans Day we salute our military men and women. via http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/05/figures-obama-confuses-memorial-day-with-veterans-day-again/

As the health care reform bill is now at the Senate, we wonder if any of the 1000’s of pages refer to President Obama’s urging that Veterans pay for their own health insurance?  March 09, “Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.” http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance/

Part of the Official Proclamation,   http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/docs/proclamation_2009.pdf

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11,2009, as Veterans Day. I encourage all Americans to recognize the valor and sacrifice of our veterans through appropriate public ceremonies and private prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I call on all Americans, including civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, and communities to support this day with commemorative expressions and programs.

Yesterday, speaking at Fort Hood, “This is a time of war,” the President said. “Yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle.  They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community.  This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible.” http://www.poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=3021

9-11.

Where was Janet  Napolitano and the other government officials who were so worried about military extremists attending tea parties,  instead of following up on known leads that Maj. Nidal Hasan was about unleash a shooting spree on his fellow countrymen? “Even more incomprehensible,” even while watching his “Red Flag” activities the military gave him a promotion.  Maybe our Harvard Educated President needs to comprehend the idea that radical Muslims are the enemy, whether they live in Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc., or the U.S.A.

America is at war.  Is the President doing all he can?  “President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama on Saturday doled out presidential M&Ms and dried fruit mixes to more than 2,000 trick-or-treaters.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/white-house-visitors-list_n_340787.html  The guest list at the White House looks more like a Barackstar Party, finding more time to meet with Oprah than his generals. 

Are you doing all you can?  Thank a veteran, fly the flag, and in 2013 vote Republican.

Open wide, say ahhh and check out these posts on the A/H1N1 Swine Flu from Ahrcanum, where the conspiracy spreads as fast as the virus itself.

http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/swine-flu-report/

Subscribe NOW in the top right margin for further updates.

Candidate Obama knew how to fix everything. He had hope, a cool logo on his airplane. With President Obama all we want is change and he is stuck with a flag he doesn’t respect on the tail. Remember how candidate Obama knew how to fix the war in Afghanistan, and knew exactly what President George W. Bush was doing wrong there. And remember how candidate Obama within hours of any controversy would inform you that his team had a solution. With a President Obama we still blame President Bush but the message is old, and the rhetoric is tired.

Yeah it always makes my day to see the President Obama has time to play basketball with his friend. Candidate Obama was to busy to ever play games or smart enough not to release the photos!

Candidate Obama would have already run from health care and washed his hands of it. Under a candidate Obama we would already have moved on looking busy. President Obama doesn’t even know when he’s lost. The candidate Obama knew who to dump and when to move on.

Seems that we are stuck with a President Obama who will salute dead soldiers coffins with pride. Showing no emotions or responsibility for not giving his commanders the funding, additional troops or backing they deserve. Don’t forget that a candidate Obama wouldn’t even salute the flag. It’s hard to stomach that President Obama likes saluting coffins.

I was looking through the Logo Design Love website, when I found an extremely interesting post on it that brought you through the contenders for the Obama branding for his 2008 Presidency Campaign. Sol Sender, led the design team for the Obama 08 logo and interestingly enough he had never worked on a political logo before. These were some of the ideas that he and his team came up with that just didn’t cut it.

This is Option 1. It is an interesting idea, just using blue, with clever use of reflection. It is quite interesting how half of the ‘08 is present but it is still readable. It is quite quirky with the use of reflection, it catches your attention. I think however that it probably isn’t suitable for a presidency campaign. It is extremely corporate, and I think a bit too similar to many other designs. It is very straight and bland, it is missing substance.

This is option 2. Personally I absolutely adore overlaying colours, especially in type, it just is so eye catching and so beautiful, it just adds to text, without having to do too much. This logo has an interesting layout, the 0′8 being the most predominant, with the campaign info to the side. It is quite an interesting design, the layout would be quite interesting turned 90 degrees clockwise, I could see it being used on many different treatments either way. It is very patriotic in colour choice with the red and blue against the white, which is quite an important statement for a Presidency Campaign, it means that the American people can associate with the logo. It is a very clean, fresh and modern design, but I am not to sure if the ‘08 in scale should be so predominant.

This is option 3. I actually quite like the idea behind this logo. I love how the designers have made the O and the B at the start of the name also represent an 0 and an 8. It is very quirky and eye catching and gives equal importance to both pieces of information. Again the designers used the patriotic colours of the American Flag. It is a very clean design, that is quite modern, it is youthful enough to reach out to first time or young voters and also modern and corporate enough to speak out to an older audience. I think it would be quite an appropriate design but it is still lacking in something.

This is option 4. This is an interesting approach to the logo, clipping an illustration into the 0, of ‘08. It is in a way cheesy shown in this context but the designers presented this logo on many different treatments and in some it actually looked quite interesting and appropriate. I wonder why the designers chose to put a picture of a landscape instead of some other photograph that would represent the candidate or their ideologies, but I suppose in the same breath I can see that it could represent the future, a bright future, or even a breath of fresh air that the candidate it bringing.

This is option 5. This is quite an interesting logo, using speech bubbles to communicate the information. Again the designers used the patriotic colours; red, white and blue. It is quite a contemporary design, it is very youthful and for this reason I can see why it was not chosen. It is not very appropriate for a presidency campaign, it is too playful and looks more like branding for some sort of advertisement trying to sell something to a target audience of 18 to 25 year olds. It is completely detached from the majority of the population especially those who will vote. It is not serious enough, and does not say anything about the candidate. It is an interesting design, with interesting layout and it could work so beautifully on another project but I feel that it is completely inappropriate for a presidency campaign.

This was the winning design. The logo moves forward from the above design of the 0 with the picture in it, instead it is a beautiful logo, of the stripes of the American flag, with a sun rising over it. It is a very powerful and beautiful design, the type works well with it, using differing shades of blue. It is modern yet it is a timeless logo that will last, as it is so simple yet not bland, it invited the viewer in a communicates through image. It is beautiful, and inviting and reaches out to wide target audience. It would work beautifully in many different treatments which the designers showed throughout the entire campaign.

It is interesting to see the progression of how a logo like this is designed and where the design originated from. It is also extremely interesting to see especially for a student designer like me, that all designers go through a lot of prep work and quite a few design ideas to get to the final, perfect one.

I’m madder a cow with a burned behind!

Does anybody think it’s crazy that the Communist in Chief is the only President in the history of America that has his own personal logo?

I just saw a picture on the computer machine of a White House butler whose job it is to keep the Teleprompter Kid’s personal basketballs blown up – and these basketballs have that red, white and blue letter “O” on them!

Everywhere I look, there’s that stupid letter “O”. Who thought up that girly, swirly “wave” thing, anyhow? It looks like it belongs on a candybar wrapper! Is this America or a soda pop factory?

We already have a flag and a Presidential seal with a big angry eagle or something on it, but I guess Old Glory and a giant pissed off bird with arrows in his claws just aren’t good enough for the great Obama!

I don’t get it: when a big athlete joins a team, he usually wears THEIR logos – they don’t wear HIS!

Did JFK have monogrammed condoms? Did Nixon have his own brand of tape recorders? Not even that commie pinko Roosevelt stuck giant letter “R”s on everything that didn’t move!

And who’s paying for all this junk? We are, America! The government stole half your money and used it to buy Obama stuff with his initials all over it, like my teenage granddaughter has!

Well, I’ve got a letter of my own: an “X” – and I can’t wait to use it to vote this guy out of office!

Much has been made of PepsiCo’s branding remakes this year. The Tropicana orange juice rebrand was widely panned, forcing the brand to go reverse course and go back to what didn’t seem to be broken after sales plunged. Along with consumers, designers weren’t crazy about it either.

The Gatorade rebranding (to G) seems to have received mixed reviews. Personally I think it’s ok, but there are now so many variants of G that it’s hard to know which one to drink when. When, exactly, am I supposed to drink Be Tough and when am I supposed to drink Shine On? At this point, they are all interchangeable to me so I just buy whatever’s on sale.

Any then of course, there is the mothership: Pepsi. While it has always played second fiddle to Coca-Cola, both cultural and via sales, there is no denying it is an iconic American brand. I’m not really a cola drinker, so I’ve always viewed the “cola wars” as a detached observer.  But what Coke has done well is maintain brand consistency. That script font, contour bottle and dynamic ribbon are as famous as the secret formula.

The Pepsi redesign has been well documented (and the redesign documents have been well documented). Ok, so you decide to make a change. Not my choice, but fine, that’s your call. But what I can’t figure out is this: Right now if you are out looking for a Pepsi, you may find one that looks like this:

That's the new Pepsi logo, you know, the one that looks like Obama's logo

Or like this:

The Pepsi logo we all know and love

Wait, what?

VSA Partners, the company behind Barack Obama’s logo Sol Sender talks about the process of conceptualizing and designing the logo in this 2-part video. They also talk about the concepts that didn’t make it, as well as how the community started to use it in ways they didn’t imagine.

In think in all the years that we have had a president, we have never had one quite like Barack Obama when it comes to his ability to realize how important branding is to represent who we are and what we stand for. Everyone who followed this campaign will never forget his campaign logo or slogan “Change We Can Believe In.” Whether or not you were/are an Obama fan, his slogan was something people will never forget. He never backed down from it. He believed in what he was representing and that authenticity is what made him a strong competitor. It made him stand out from the pack and ultimately, I think, what gave him that edge. That is the importance of branding. I realize being president depends mostly on politics, but I can’t remember another president who seemed to make such a big impact with their branding — and he is at it again. On the blog Logo Design Next I came upon Barack Obama’s new branding project. It is the “The 787 Billion Dollar Economic Stimulus Package Logo.” I know this may be about a month old but this is the first time I have seen it and I am totally impressed. According to LogoDesignNext.com the logo design will be used on all projects funded by the recently launched stimulus package aimed at reviving the ailing US economy. The logo features different aspects of the stimulus package including a plant representing green technology, gears representing the infrastructure, a cross representing health care as well as stars from the US flag and the words Recovery.gov, the web site which will be used to track the progress of stimulus projects. When I think of politics and what they represent I never thought I would see something so modern like this. I think Barack Obama knows what branding is about and he is making his mark in the political world. No longer is it about conservatism, he knows how important it is to stand out and get noticed. This new logo really makes a statement and has a lot of symbolism behind it. So often I think logos try to encompass too much and they become too literal. $787 million is a lot to cover but I think this is a success. I can’t wait to see what they unveil next. So what do you think?

–Bethany

Looks like more of our tax dollars are going to go to waste now that Obama has decided to brand projects that are being funded by the economic stimulus package.  Folks will now be able to easily recognize the detrimental effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act each time this logo presents itself, and further brands socialism. 

Every time you see one of these logos, it is nothing more than our government reminding us that socialism is at work.  Obama said. “These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done.  So when you see them on projects that your tax dollars made possible, let it be a reminder that our government — your government — is doing its part to put the economy back on the road of recovery.”  Yes, our government, “doing its part” to encourage Americans to easily accept socialism. 

Most departments of government currently have a separate logo from the Post Office to the Office of Homeland Security, but this one reeks of Obama.  Nice circle, eh?  That circle branded Obama during the campaign and into the office of president elect -which he created, and on into the White House.  That circle is probably more identifiable than Pepsi’s New Logo.  Upside down a Pepsi container looks like is says Obama is ded. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe4yGRGSWQg   Maybe the circle represents that orifice of the human body that produces crap.

What are those eight stars for?  Eight missing relatives in Kenya?  Eight  Supreme Court Justices he hopes to appoint? Eight is the atomic number of Oxygen- maybe we won’t be able to breath without Obama.  Spiders have eight legs and resemble Michelle Obama’s inaugural black widow dress.  Octopus’ have eight tentacles to wrap around you until you suffocate.  The eighth tooth is called the wisdom tooth.  We should have had more wisdom in our electors than to vote in Obama, who might serve eight years as President. 

In Christianity, eight is allegoric to what is beyond time (because the number 7 refers to the days of the week which repeat themselves), saying that there will be no end to the Reign of Obama?  Already there are measures pending in Congress to over turn term limits. 

Two of the stars have a little nick in them-mmmmm, bullets nick people.  Hope not.  Maybe the two odd stars are representative of Obama’s daughter’s, the real shining lights of the White House. Two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Two, as in you and the government?  In Hegelian dialectic the process of synthesis creates two perspectives from one.  Marx =Obama?  Do good things really come in pairs?

The Jewish religious rite of brit mila, more commonly known as circumcision is held on a baby boy’s eighth day of life.  Do the eight stars represent Obama cutting off the head of America, or just squeezing our balls for every last dime for generations to come? 

Is that a cross in the middle of the gears?  Is the cross about to be squeezed, no longer having any separation of church and state.  The government already blurs the laws of the church with Obama overturning abortion and stem cell research.  Is the big gear going to tell the little gear how to move and what it can do all its days?  Maybe the red cross might see a little copyright violation unless it sees some federal funding. Just maybe it is the blood of fallen soldiers in the gears of change.

Is that broken off leaf supposed to give me a tree hugger sort of feeling and instill harmony between nature, climate change, government and me?  barf.  Maybe that is the anise and herbs that Michelle is in charge of in the White House Garden.  I can’t tell you how happy I am our tax dollars are paying for a gardener!  Maybe that is the branch of friendship.  O, how nice.

The logo isn’t even in the usual red, white and blue American style, instead opting for baby shit green and alien, blood red.  Of course, this isn’t the first stimulus plan to have a logo. FDR had his own for the National Recovery Administration. Obama’s is far less fascist the biz insider points out at http://www.businessinsider.com/the-stimulus-gets-its-own-logo-2009-3

I wonder if the logo will replace Obama’s flag pin? Maybe we can incorporated the logo into our American Flag?  What do you think?

Post a comment, you know you want to.

De post komt wel een beetje laat , maar is nog altijd interessant. Zeker als je geintereseerd bent in hoe logo’s tot stand komen , en wat er allemaal achter zit. In de volgende filmpjes zien we Sol Sender van Mode die uitlegt hoe het campagne-logo van Obama tot stand is gekomen.

Interessant proces , ook leuk om te zien welke ontwerpen het niet zijn geworden.

People who know me will know that I am a little sceptical of the whole social media evangelising “thing” – while I believe that social media has its role, I think that it very much depends on deployment. As would probably be expected, the issue of Campaign released on the 14th November has a heavy focus on Obama’s election victory, dedicating a number of articles to its implications for the marketing world.

I was interested by Russell Davies article on “How Obama election was truly a post-digital lesson.” I don’t think that it is printed online, so I’ll republish it in full here. If anyone can send me a link to it, I’ll gladly link it.

“A little while ago, a bunch of prognosticators, me included, excitedly predicted that the next US election would be the first truly “digital” campaign. The way the Howard Dean campaign used the web for fundraising and the outbreaks of candidate embarrassment on YouTube pointed to a big future for digital campaigning on the web.

But Barack Obama has proved us all wrong. His campaign was so digitally savvy, so smart in exploiting new marketing tools, that it became post-digital in a way that few brands have managed. The newness or specialness of the tools lost their meaning and became integrated in the total marketing effort.

They treated digital like a teenager treats MySpace: just something that’s there to be used. So let’s try to learn from four smart things that they did. First, the iPhone app. The Obama campaign got this into the Apple App Store while most brands were still asking what an app was. It took all of the contacts on your phone, and organised them by battleground state = you could call them and suggest they vote for Obama – and you’d be calling people who mattered to the campaign.

Cleverly, they also recorded the number of calls you were making, so you could compare yourself to the average. Give people a score and they’ll always try to maximise it. The best marketing is sometimes about giving people the tools to do what you want, not telling them to do it.

The second great thing they did was act with great nimbleness in exploiting opportunities that came their way. The defining images of the campaign were probably the posters of Obama done by Shephard Fairey, best known for his Andre the Giant street postings. These were initially entirely unofficial, cultish, and underground. But they were co-opted by the campaign and added to the reservoir of imagery to be used, opportunistically enhancing the campaign’s “cool”.

Their third brilliant thing was the use of old-fashioned telly; even a tool as devalued as the infomercial. They recognised that television still can’t be beaten as a way of creating spectacle and delivered a 30-minute roadblock a week before the election. Not to deliver a message, but to convey weight, scale and momentum. All things telly does well.

And the fourth bit of genius was their attention to detail. They knew that design mattered. That the website mattered. That having good versions of the campaign logo for every allied group mattered. And crucially, they were prepared to win, as they rolled out change.gov right after the election. We had the world’s first post-digital election campaign. I wonder what we’ll have next in Britain.”

Panorama: n. a picture exhibited a part at a time by being unrolled before the spectator

If hundreds of people in Anchoarage, Alaska can get out in 20 degree weather at 7 a.m. to form a human Obama logo, you can get out to vote. Better yet, you can even join the GOTV effort in YOUR town. That’s what I’m doing between now and Tuesday. Warm yourself up:

The Obama symbol has been adapted by many organizations during this campaign. I’d love to see the ones you have found or created. This one is my favorite so far. I’m on my way to watch the Obama thirty minute program with the “Mushers for Obama.” OK, I want to see your favorites! 

Being an avid Obama supporter I’ve been looking at all the great, inspiring Obama based artwork that is running and posted everywhere. Thanks to JEFF DOMKE we can all start mass producing them this week and putting them out to the public. Jeff has created a dingbats STYLE font called OBAMABATS, a great little compilation of Obama images easily usable and vector ready. Thanks again Jeff, and thanks to QUIPSOLOGIES once more for bringing something else that is cool to my attention. Get there, download it, make some artwork and post it everywhere. Spread the word. Obama 08

Pepsi’s New Logo A Bargain At Several Hundred Million Dollars

This economic downturn has, surprisingly, not killed the “branding” industry, which exists for the sole purpose of allowing graphic design majors to soak clueless corporate behemoths out of millions of dollars for what amounts to a few tweaks of a computer design template. We salute you, brand consultants! You are the hustlers of a new generation. Pictured is the inanimate, non-dynamic, old Pepsi logo; and the “more dynamic and more alive” new logo that Pepsi just rolled out at a cost that will eventually total hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide: Everything is different now. The new Pepsi logo, below.

Some comments from readers:

Is it the midsection of a man wearing a red shirt and blue pants who drinks too much Pepsi?

looks like old spice and a sailing company had dirty dirty logo sex.

The new one looks angry.

Mmmmmmm, makes me thirsty for high fructose corn syrup!

I know this! It’s Pac Man’s cousin Two-Tone.                                                    

I’m in the wrong f*cking business.

I swear that’s also the logo for Korean Air.

My comment: In my design class, this new one would have been critiqued as “weak”. Actually, it makes me think of a plumpish woman’s butt, you know where the pants kinda ride down… I’d put the word ‘Pepsi’ just peeking up into the white above the blue… like a butt “tramp-stamp”. Yeah!

And, sorry Pepsi, but I prefer the logo you had when I tried your foul tasting syrupy-goo as a child. If it’s not ice-cold, it tastes like cough syrup to me.

Want to see the new plastic bottles and cans? I know you can’t wait. See link below.

See: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/pepsi_new_bottles.php 

Pictured above: Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign logo.

Brand development: A quick look at the power of symbols.

Back in the good old days of cowboys and cattle drives, “brands” were marks to identify ownership of livestock. That ownership eventually became a stamp of quality in cattle markets. Over time, the terms “mark” and “brand” became interchangeable in the world of product marketing. (In francophone countries, the word “Marque” – the French equivalent of ‘Mark’ – is still in use today.)

Whatever your language of choice, the term “brand” has since evolved to encompass almost every facet of a specific business’ identity, from cultural relevance and market leadership to the ability to routinely create iconic products and build a great reputation. At the forefront of a brand (as printed on a company’s packaging, products, websites, letterhead, front door, etc. is its mark. Its logo. Its symbol.

Humans like symbols and emblems, whether they show up on flags, military unit patches, family crests, educational institutions’ emblems, sports teams’ uniforms, the butt of livestock, products, or corporate letterhead. We wear them on T-shirts and baseball caps. We stick them on our cars and laptops. We paste them onto our desktops. We add them to our Facebook walls. Some of us even get them tattooed sometimes. (Note: The next photo is not of me.) That is the level of emotional attachment that people can have with symbols, which is why almost every organization in the world uses them.

Without flags, symbols, marks and logos, what would initially separate Nike from Adidas, France from Belgium, Dell from HP, Volkswagen from Audi, or even the Yankees from the Socks? (I said initially! Chill, sports fans.)

To illustrate the role that evocative emblems (logos) can play in the success and longevity of a brand, here are a few you might be familiar with:

Pretty potent stuff. Okay, so we’ve established the power of logos. Badges. Emblems.Symbols.Whatever you choose to call them. We can move on now.

The emergence of branding concepts and logos in political campaigns.

One of the prime newcomers on the list of most-viewed “logos” in the last few months has been Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s distinctive circular sunrise and stripes. Last month, I brought you the history of the Republican and Democratic parties’ elephant and donkey emblems; today, I bring you a little bit of insight into how the Obama campaign logo came to be.

From Chicago Business News:

A team of Chicago graphic designers has given Barack Obama’s campaign its signature look. Sol Sender of Sender LLC and five others in his firm created the logo the Illinois senator is using for his 2008 presidential bid.

The icon, a gradated blue “o” featuring three red stripes, is prominently displayed on Mr. Obama’s campaign Web site pages and featured on t-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers.

Sender LLC is a Chicago brand consultancy and design studio whose clients include Crain’s.

“We were looking at the “o” of his name and had the idea of a rising sun and a new day,” Mr. Sender said. “The sun rising over the horizon evoked a new sense of hope.”

“It begins to break with tradition while also rooting itself in tradition,” said Peter Krivkovich, CEO of Cramer-Krasselt advertising agency in Chicago. “Patriotism is the foundation, but above that is hope, opportunity, newness.”

While most presidential campaign sign designers have traditionally not strayed beyond the realm of background color and font type, it is interesting to see logo design finally make its way into the world of voter influence tactics.

Of course, we don’t need to look too far to find another example of catchy political logo work of late. Our sitting president, George W. Bush’s iconic “W” (ironically adopted by Oliver Stone as the title of his latest movie) has served as an emblem in its own right, showing up on bumper stickers, T-shirts and even underwear.

Where do we go from here?

Are we seeing a new trend in presidential political marketing? Possibly. If the objective is to help a candidate appear to stand stand for something greater than a political platform or formulaic series of promises, why not create an emblem that can hold that message for them and resonate with an audience in the same way that our favorite brand logos do? Why not transcend agendas and soundbites to create something greater – something that can be conveyed in a symbol? It looks like political strategists have finally tapped into our need to rally behind symbols rather than… words. In the same way that we get behind Apple, Harley Davidson, Nike and New York Yankees logos, we can now get behind our presidential candidates’ logos and truly join their team.

It’s probably too soon to tell whether or not a candidate – in spite of their record, position in regards to issues and even charisma – might actually gain an advantage over another by having a well-designed logo, but the question is well worth asking.

Eh.

One quick word of caution as present and future presidential hopefuls begin to venture across the candidate-to-brand barrier in order to gain a strategic advantage: The margin of error in the world of brands is razor-thin. As expectations rise to unrealistic levels (political leadership is much more complex and volatile than market leadership), each mistake become increasingly costly. (The White House doesn’t have a customer service department. You aren’t likely getting a refund or a discount coupon in the mail when things don’t go your way.)

The power that comes with becoming a brand can be too much for just one man (or woman) to handle – even for a Washington, Kennedy, Roosevelt or Lincoln.

As my uncle Ben once told me, with great power comes great responsibility. Something to consider once elections are behind us and the time comes to actually deliver.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

image of Super Obama by legendary graphic artist Alex Ross.

Below are my updated high resolution versions of the latest Obama Biden logo.

If you are looking blow this up and print something large, I’d instead recommend looking at my Free Printable Obama Biden Signs post. That post has PDF versions of the logos which are vector based and will enlarge to anysize without jaggies.

As promised, the gradient versions have been added.

Here are versions with a fairly large sized “O”…

Here’s a version with a more modestly sized “O”…

I’ve written in the past about Senator Barack Obama and how his story is a great example of a brand that has created a Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe (DINU) that his supporters have not only bought into, but have contributed to.  Here’s another great example. Look how the Obama logo has been modified for a whole host of interest groups. Here are a couple of diverse examples:

Whether you are a (L-R) Rebuplican, Environmentalist or of the Jewish faith, you can be part of the brand. This is a great lesson for marketers who have been conditioned to believe that the logo is sacred.  What if Nike or Starbucks or Apple authorized consumers to create distinct versions of their logos?

I’m not suggesting this works for everyone. First, I think you have to have a very strong, iconic graphic. The Swoosh, Apple and Starbucks logos fit that bill. A weak or unestablished logo would not hold up to this. Secondly, you have to have a brand that truly stands for something. I think Google has done a terrific job in this area, always willing to play with the logo on their homepage. In fact, they have made that part of their brand identity. I like seeing what Google has done and always make sure to take a moment to look at their logo treatment for the day.

The bottom line: Give your consumers a chance to own your brand and make it theirs.

I saw this a few days ago.  Obama’s new logo. 

I could have sworn that Obama was not exactly Captain Capitalism.  Many have indicated that this logo is a rip off of other logos such as the Harley Davidson logo  (which is ironic, since the logo was developed as a dig at McCain for his “50,000 Harley’s” comment).  However, I have spotted a more likely rip off…the Mini Cooper logo.  Hee!