MnIndy’s Schmelzer to moderate ‘Designing Obama’ discussion

For decades, political campaign art had more in common with Menard’s than Milton Glaser: the graphic designer — whose job was to sell candidates through an expected visual language of flag-toned stars and/or bars — took the back seat, while the well-funded media buyer got the front. Then came Barack Obama. His campaign, lead by design director Scott Thomas, enlisted designer Sol Sender to both create a memorable identity and advance the lessons of Howard Dean’s surprise “netroots” surge of 2004. On May 12, Thomas and Sender will discuss the development of the Obama campaign in a panel called, “Designing Obama” — and Minnesota Independent editor Paul Schmelzer will be moderating the evening.

Design with a big O: On developing Obama’s campaign identity

While Barack Obama apparently did many things right on his campaign, possibly the most visible mark of success was his ubiquitous graphic design identity. Now that the dust of Election 2008 is settling, Sol Sender, who along with Andy Keene and Amanda Gentry, designed the identity, is discussing how the logo came to be. Here’s a look at options the Obama campaign didn’t go with — and video of Sender, whose team had never worked on a political campaign before, explaining the process.

Deconstructing Dumbo: 100 GOP logos

Last time the Republicans had a national convention, New York-based designers Thomas Fuchs and Felix Sockwell couldn’t pass up a chance to protest — only they did so in a medium they’re comfortable with: They reinvented the GOP elephant in 100 different ways. Sockwell distributed the logos — a Pepsi-sponsored GOP elephant, a trunk transformed into a gun aimed back at a soldier’s head, a pachyderm turned into a hunch-backed man with a cane — in a bicycle rickshaw throughout New York.

With another convention in the wings, I contacted the artists to see if they had any updates to their self-published book, GOP 100: Deconstructing Dumbo. While they said the book is still fresh four years later and doesn’t necessarily need updating, they had one: a retitled piece showing an elephant in prison stripes (reminiscent of this year’s convention logo). It’s now called “Larry Craig.”

Convene Scene: Designers Look at Political Logos

The new logo for the Republican National Convention, unveiled this week, prompts some immediate questions:

Why is the GOP elephant Democratic blue? Are those prison stripes on its back? And — given the convention’s…