11 March 2010

[logo] I Have A Logo To Donate To The Delphine Campaign

2343.
It's all over the place, and dang that I wasn't able to catch it earlier, but US Senate candidate Marc Delphine today tried to push the envelope on the concept of there being no such thing as bad publicity.

In need of a striking identity for his upstart campaign to replace Oregon senior Senator Ron Wyden his campaign, through processes still unclear, to come up with this:



… which is very dynamic. And also, not terribly original. Because, as any fan of the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets might creditably say, Been there, done that …



… got the t-shirt.


You can go on all you want about derivative logos and matters of difference, but aside from the subtraction of the red circle and the addition to a flappity-flourish on the end of the banner, it's the same thing – flipped. In perhaps a predictable ways, the Delphine campaign appeared to try to eat their cake and still have it by simultaneously accepting responsibility and deferring blame to the mythical volunteer "Aaron". This following from The Oregonian via the progressive website Blue Oregon:

On the logo issue, Delphine said he thought a volunteer named "Aaron" designed it and donated it to his campaign. Delphine said he does not have any other information about "Aaron."

Delphine referred questions about "Aaron" to his Web site administrator, Jerry DeFoe. DeFoe said he does not know who created the logo and questioned whether it is worth pursuing.


I'm hoping "Aaron" is working under an assumed name. Actually, "Aaron" probably is an assumed name, if you follow me.

Look, everyone hopes their political campaign logo can hit a home run, like the President's did. It'd be nice if it would. But my experience runs toward two places here: first, you don't really need a groundbreaking logo for a polticial campaign – all it really has to be is a little bit catchy. I didn't think George W Bush's electoral logo – the W with the flapping American flag – was particularly genius, but it was effective, it filled its role well, and it was memorable enough. Most of the time, if you just catch yourself a few five-pointed stars and got some stripes in there, you'd have a win instead of a PR face plant.

Put my money where my mouth is? Okay. Now, I'm not the kind who votes Libertarian, so this is not an endorsement of Delphine's campaign or even his political presence, but here's something for you – (this has, all of a sudden, turned fun):



There, I fixed it for you. Is it perfect? No. Logo treatments out of the box never are – or rarely are. But there's a star and a blue stripe, suggesting the flag. Red, white and blue – it's all there. Even used the big red star to form the dot over the "i". The flag in the background? Free photo stock from the Stock Xchange (http://www.sxc.hu). It's still a little bright and busy for the foreground, but I'd adjust this in a second round; this is, after all, a rush job. Done in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, for what that's worth.

And you know what? If Mr. Delphine wants to use it – hey, go ahead. Just give me credit.

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