danielredbeard’s weblog

This is not one of the aforementioned three thoughts – it’s something I noticed the other day while driving away from a dog park.

Good news/side bar: We were at a dog park because we had a house showing. It’s so weird. You leave your house, know that total strangers are going to come to it while you’re not there, judge your dwelling place, and then leave. You might get to meet them someday at closing. Bizarre.

Anyway, we hung out at a dog park while strangers walked our abode, and as I drove off I thought a new Obama window sticker caught my eye.

I have to say that if I voted as only a desinger, Obama would win hands-down… though I have to give McCain props for branding himself in a very militant way – that star thing works. Anyway, Obama has the best branding and design any candidate has ever had, and I’d be curious to see someone post media of him without the branding to see how his hyperbole plays out. I’d bet it’s not as polished. Packaging maters, and we do in fact judge books by their covers. It’s my job to design a book’s cover so you’ll judge it worthy of purchasing.

Anway…

My eye always catches stuff that I think is “good” design (in design, good is subject to one’s opinion… there is no objective “good design”). I thought I saw the “O” of the Obama logo, but what I saw was not the logo. Instead it was this:

This is the USA Water Polo logo, and it sure looks familiar, doesn’t it? Try blurring your eyes and looking at it. Try envisioning it being produced in one color for a window decal.

Even though I don’t respect Obama in the least, don’t agree with his politics or policies, and don’t like the thought of him being the leader of the USA, I at least had respect for his branding. It’s good. It’s really good. I imagine Ad Age or HOW or GDUSA or some other design industry pub will have a special issue just for his branding whether he wins or loses. The Obama branding is the beginning of candidates from this point forward employing the services of very with-it branding professionals to manage their brand… which is good news for my field, sort of.

Anyway, I have to confess my disappointment when I later googled the USA Water Polo logo, and found it to more ore less be the source of Obama’s logo. For the record, the USA Water Polo logo has been around a lot longer than Obama’s logo.

I already knew that much of Obama’s content was originally John Edwards’ content from his previous presidential and vice-presidental bids (look it up), and that what he proposes is well-branded Socialism (at best). But I assumed that the really good branding we were seeing was the product of good original thinking.

Now this?!

It’s all a scam. I’m waiting for either Obama or McCain to look into the camera on a Tuesday night speech, and say “Live from New York… it’s Saturday Night!” in order to confess that this race has been one big farce. But I don’t think that will happen.

Ok, enough with this. Back to being cynical.