How the strongest brand of 2008 became the image of man in persuit of a goal

I have spent the better part of a day indulging in one of my favorite show in the world; the West Wing. This indulgence has in its wake, left me thinking about the outcome of the November elections and more importantly the electoral process of the United States. What has even sparked a greater interest is how I have now developed a keep sense of respect for one of the candidates, merely for his teams effort in positioning him in a visual way. I do not believe that there has ever been a candidate who has pushed the importance of design as much as Barack Obama has done. While we never will really know if the initial directive to make design prominent within his campaign was his, it is clear that someone is strongly heading up any effort to portray him not only in a manner that resonates with those who react to such visual stimuli, but also that its an effort that is built on what people expect from successful and powerful commercial brands.

When the presentation of his logo became public, many a design blog commented on the strength and simplicity of the design. In other posts through out the internet the discussion went further into the application across various platforms, most notably his website, which has also received as many praises as the logo itself.

In time what was incredibly unique to the whole language was that, it in fact had become a language. The campaign has solidified a stylistic delivery of its brand and had managed to so it in a very elegant way. The hardest thing about politics is not alienating people, everyone always wants to be able to connect

to the person on some level. And the campaign had done just that. not only by creating subsidiary brands that make the experience unique to each person, but they had done it consistently and even with a a little flair.  I am mostly impressed by the fact that design was never dumbed down, the look was not simplified to meet everyone’s need, but rather the energy was focused on developing an image a broad group of people could initially connect to and then with some involvement could tailor to themselves.  It is the most successful case I have seen that is recent, and more importantly that is based on the notion of one man.

What has perhaps been the most interesting byproduct of the this strong brand, is that is has been treated as so. All of a sudden some of the best designed merchandise can be found at store.BarackObama.com. This is a step i never imagined would be taken in politics, but now its not a matter of getting a t shirt at a rally, now you can purchase the shirt, a matching polo, a windbreaker , and umbrella, water jug, coffee mug, and a button for every occasion. The most innovative of them all is the state by state shirt which lets you personalize your experience of the candidate to your situation. Questions though remain as to weather all this commercialization is good or even ethical. The democratic process is about one man, seeking to represent us all, not a brand for us to cart out to the street as part of our stylish outfit. And can one man really deliver ? i think not… but that’s another post.

It has been so successful, that my legal resident alien status granted to me by this American government, has made me upset because i cant vote. But there is nothing that says i cant buys a tshirt.