The Society Of The Spectacle

If you have used Google over the last couple of days, (so that’s all of you then) you may have noticed that Google has taken it’s logo experimentation to another level of evolution. First up was Monday’s joyful little play around with the dots reacting and expanding to your mouse/hand/pad gestures. Much buzz ensued about the meaning behind such a cute example of coding, was it another trailer for HTML5, or something else? Well, The Huffington Post (of all places) revealed it was for the launch of CSS3. Mystery solved then. (more…)

Remember him? That hope and change guy that had everyone in a tizz a couple of years ago? Yep, thought so.

While the Obama Whitehouse might be struggling to find it’s political feet before the onslaught of the Congressional Mid-Terms, Scott Thomas, the designer behind the Obama ’08 Campaign brand has very generously distributed the book online for free. (Or you can buy it iPad here) Designing Obama is a fascinating creative journey, that shows the simple power of a compelling brand identity. It’s ability to act as both a rallying cry/unifying thought, but also it’s felxibility. The book moves smoothly from the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the brand, how Scott and his team evolved to the Obama mark, and onto how the man (and his brand) gave artists a platform to express all the hope and optimism of that campaign. The breadth of artisitic goodness on display is inspiring in the extreme. Obama 08′ brand will go down in design history, the book is an inspiring insight into that process. Let’s just hope that the 44th President keeps doing the brave and bold things he needs to to reflect the hope and change that his brand predicated.

Via the  guys at Ogilvy, here’s a film from Logorama. A magnum opus of Michelin Man coppers chasing Ronald McDonald around a world based around, and on brand logos. There is some imaginative stuff in here, apart from the amount of work that has gone into it, it also acts as quite an eye opener in the amount of logos you recognise, but it is a very interesting re-imagining. Take a peek. UPDATE: Here’s the website, where the it says this has been nominated for an Oscar for short film. Nice.

A great debate on the 30 best logos of all time. From the obvious…

to the more oblique, but beautifully crafted….