MeyerBros

I decided to check out candidate websites today to see what they were saying about themselves. But before I got to any text I was struck by the different brands being presented in logo and site design. Here’s a rundown:

Barack Obama: Hope, The Apple Way.
Everything about the Obama brand is hip and trendy. While the color choices for any candidate are limited by the patriotic palette, Obama’s blues and reds are clearly affected by current design trends. They tend towards more muted hues, and fit in comfortably with grays and whites. The Obama blue, in all it’s gradients and shades, is the number one web 2.0 color choice, clinched by it’s use as a nearly monochrome palette for the site. The logo is a circle complete with drop shadow, gradients and and a playfully altered uppercase serif wordmark. The flag isn’t just a flag, it’s a sunrise over a field. The Obama brand is, as he would say, hope.

This logo is flexible and shows up everywhere, with a one-color version used at the bottom of the site and an animated version in all the videos. You are lead through the site in a very intentional way, with minimum text at every turn. The site design is based on low-contrast grays and blues, bevels, horizons, reflections, gradients and drop shadows. If this were long-term corporate branding it would be obsolete in under two years. Lucky for Obama, it doesn’t even need to last one more year, and in the meantime he is appealing strongly to his target audience: young and savvy.

Hillary Clinton: Clinton for Mayor.
Clinton has a different target demographic and her design choices show it. Her logo is not unique in any way, and could be used as a lawn sign for the mayoral race in your local town. She is in fact hoping to be elected mayor, I think. A flag is waving as the underline for her name. This isn’t designed, this is her name and the flag. The site is also boilerplate, taken from any corporation or web business that knows it should look web 2.0 but just can’t figure out where to put everything. The gradients aren’t integrated, they are messy. And she has banner ads on the side. Banner ads? The site is a mess of information despite the smooth gradients and curves, leaving it stilted in it’s small attempts towards hipness. What should I click on? I have no idea. This brand is about what you already know and expect, big business and slow movement. (On a side note, I find it interesting that her’s is the only logo using only the first name. I have heard accusations that she is the only one referred to by first name in the press, but it seems to be true in her own materials as well. There could be any number of reasons, but it’s interesting.)

John McCain: An Army Of One.
John McCain is running on his military record, can you tell? This is a very strong design choice along the lines of Obama’s - but in a different direction. Where Obama was reaching out to the iPod crowd, McCain is reaching out to an audience of military personnel, veterans and families. He uses stark, imposing and classy white and gold on black. the logo is simple, and it’s simply military. He is making a visual statement about strength and class. Bold. This is “straight talk” designed right. Vote for McCain and please join the army.

Mitt Romney: Romney IS A Republican.
If McCain was the republican counterpart to Obama, Romney is the counterpart to Clinton. Where McCain is stating a clear vision, Romney is yelling “I’M A REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE!” His requisite flag is an eagle! Look at that! He’s a republican! Yes, he also has banner ads for merch in his sidebar, and his favicon looks like an airline logo. Oh, he also put quotes around “blog” - because this is, you know, as the kids say, “a blog”. This man is trying to be president, enough said.

Mike Huckabee: Huckabee is Magic.
And last, and least: Mike Huckabee is magic. He lives in Disneyland and may well be a fairy prince. There is very little else to say. His website is not much of anything, and his logo has stars floating (up? down?) beside his oh-so-local-county-commissioner-layout name. Is he still running?

Moving On:
All of these candidates seem accurately (if not “well”) branded to me, though it seems only Obama and McCain could afford real branding efforts.

I only got into reading the issues pages on Obama and Clinton’s sites. There is a clear distinction here, not on what issues they mention but on the specificity of their comments. Clinton’s page is about what she has done, Obama’s is about what he will do. When it comes to action as president, only Obama makes specific claims. Take equal rights for women. Clinton says “As president, Hillary will continue her lifelong fight to ensure that all Americans are treated with respect and dignity.” Obama says “Obama will work to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that curtails racial minorities’ and women’s ability to challenge pay discrimination. Obama will also pass the Fair Pay Act to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work.” The difference seems clear throughout their sites. They might both have plans, but Obama is willing to tell you what that plan entails.

but I did make myself business cards today. so here’s a sampling of them:

an interesting piece of advice from marketing guru Seth Godin:

Need to design a logo? Don’t.

I’m not sure how well it really holds up, but I think he has a great point behind it. The content makes the logo. All you need is something that will work to carry it. It doesn’t need (and shouldn’t have?) a lot of meaning already.

This video from an Anthropology professor in Kansas takes a breathtakingly quick sweep over the new world of Web 2.0 in a video that BoingBoing describes as “deeply moving and incredibly smart.” I’m not sure if I was moved or not, but watching the video left me with a sense of being part of something new and bigger than myself. Maybe sitting in front a computer 8 hours a day and fiddling with code is worth something after all.

Its enough to make me want to pull out my old Anthropology text book!

here’s another design for the meyerbros site. i moved the banner to the side to play with a new look, and to allow the content to flow right to the top. i think this is also the first full screen design.

feel free to comment on the usability of this design. i’ll still be making minor edits to it for a while to get it cleaned up.

jackson pollock.

that’s how he did it. i swear.

The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. (or, mathmatically, MT = a + b log₂(2A/W + c))

I’ve been reading up on user interface design, and this stuff is fascinating. I’m finding it all through the humanized blog. i had been thinking that google calendars’ quick event entry system was brilliant and now i can explain it. it’s accessed by the fastest/largest target possible (wherever your mouse happens to be) and the options are severly limited for input. works great.

now do that for a wysiwig editor. (and what about that pie-chart menu idea? i think that’s swell and we should give it a try)

everyone knows that airports are the best place for people-watching, and a well-handled layover can really be a public performance art installation.

at the JFK airport, they’ve taken that performance seriously and hired David Rockwell, a set designer, to design their new terminal. He, in turn, hired choreographer Jerry Mitchell as a collaborator. Together they have designed “Hairspray”, “The Rocky Horror Show”, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and now an airport terminal.

Watch this slide show with audio for more about the project. there’s also a New York Times article.

i like this conceptual design site. or what they make, more accurately. the way they break down functional expectations and then rebuild them. very interesting.

in other news: i wrote a peace play because it seemed like the right thing to do. i’m now in the editing phase. the working title is Another Pseudo-Allegory with Angels and Devils and Some Inappropriate Language in Six Parts: A Peace Play (download .rtf file). Thanks to Aristotle for his help with the structure.