Nicky Dieter, Flickr

For decades, political campaign advertising had more in common with Menards than Milton Glaser: campaign graphic designers — whose job was to sell candidates often through an expected visual language of flag-toned stars and/or bars — took the back seat, while the well-funded media buyers got the front. Then came Barack Obama. His campaign, lead by design director Scott Thomas, enlisted designer Sol Sender to both create a memorable, appealing identity and advance the lessons of Howard Dean’s web-savvy “netroots” surge of 2004.

We all know what happened next. Obama’s “O” logo became ubiquitous, embraced and modified by supporters so it appeared everywhere: carved into Halloween pumpkins, spray-painted on city concrete, plastered on cars, t-shirts and mugs, reprinted on one of American history’s most recognized political posters, and interpreted by DIYers on murals, baked goods, light-up bike spokes and beyond.

"Change" by Patrick T. Power

Next Tuesday, May 12, Thomas and Sender will be speaking at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center on the development of the Obama campaign in a panel called, “Designing Obama” — and Minnesota Independent editor Paul Schmelzer will be moderating the discussion. He’ll begin the evening by putting the campaign into historical context (how it differs from more traditional patriotic-themed campaigns by candidates like Bush, Gore and Clinton and from Obama’s 2008 challenger, Republican John McCain, whose design motif is reminiscent of a luxury car ad) and geographical context (how it played in the land of Jesse “the Body” ads and Paul Wellstone’s still omipresent green bumperstickers), before highlighting examples of creative re-use of the “O” logo.

In preparation, what would you like to ask Sender and Thomas? Got a critique or kudos for the campaign? Leave your thoughts in comments.

Tickets can be purchased here, or watch the event’s webcast live at the Walker Channel.

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

The film, which premieres at the Walker Art Center on April 15 (followed by a post-screening discussion with Morris) and begins its theatrical run at Minneapolis’ Lagoon Cinema on May 23, takes a familiar topic and tries to offer context. Key to its story, says Morris, is what happens outside the photographic frame — chiefly, how do the low-ranking Lynndie Englands of the military tell us more about those up the chain of command who consider humiliating prisoners “standard operating procedure” (as one government expert testifies)?Debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where it took home a Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, the movie has already been receiving accolades, but The Hollywood Reporter wonders if it’s treading on too-familiar turf (covered well by last year’s HBO film The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib by Rory Kennedy) and focusing too narrowly. Citing Morris’ “near-pornographic obsession” with the photos, Kirk Honeycutt writes, “The wider context of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration’s complicity in prisoner abuse, the moral and legal implications and the damage the scandal did to U.S. prestige worldwide is not even mentioned.”

Whether it offers new facts, the film’s strength, if it’s anything like Morris’ past documentaries Mr. Death and The Fog of War, will likely be how he conjures intimate and surprising tales from his subjects. Morris famously uses his invention the Interrotron, a device that allows interviewees to see Morris’ face at the end of a camera lens, as well as extremely long interview sessions to get moving material. (In this week’s New Yorker, an excerpt from Morris’ forthcoming book of the same name, co-written by Philip Gourevitch, introduces us to one of Abu Ghraib photo-taker, Spec. Sabrina Harman, whose morbid fascination with corpses — interested in forensic science, she once filmed the severed head of a cat, left over from her autopsy of it, balanced on a Fanta can — adds context to shots she took of soldiers posing near the ice-packed body of a detainee beaten to death.)

One aspect of the film, re-enactments of humiliations inflicted by American guards at the prison, has generated some controversy. In reply to a reporter at a Berlin press conference who questioned the practice of injecting fictional clips into a documentary, Morris answered, “With due respect I think this is nonsense talk. There’s this idea… that if I run around with a handheld camera and I shoot with available light that is somehow more truthful. Truth is a quest… something that I have never lost sight of and never will.”

More: View videos and slideshows on the film.