Political by Design

Here's a timely post at the ColourLovers site. Color & Design in Politics: Obama features a dozen color palettes inspired by artwork created for the Obama campaign. As they state in the blog, "This post is not meant as an endorsement of either candidate. What the post is commenting on is the creative movement that has produced a number of artistic works for Obama."

And some random, design and politics related items:

• A variety of images tagged politics + design over at Flickr.

• Earlier this year a Newsweek blog post commented on "a coherent, comprehensive program of fonts, logos, slogans and web design" being used to market or brand the Obama campaign and includes a brief reference to Clinton and McCain's branding efforts.

• Interview excerpt at designcult titled Politics, brand, and graphic design commentis on the typeface of choice for the Obama campaign.

• In McCain's Optimum Look Steven Heller asks designers what Optima (the McCain typeface of choice) says about him. Lots of interesting, thoughtful analysis that ends with this comment from Rudy VanderLans of Emigre Type:

  "What does Optima say about Senator McCain? Nothing. It probably says more about the designer than anything else. Who, except designers, would judge a candidate by the typeface?"

Without getting into a debate over the candidates, please, tell us about the best and worst designs you've seen from any political campaign -- bumper stickers, signs, posters, whatever. Red, white, and blue seem to be the color of choice for local candidates but it's the signs that choose something totally different that really stand out. There are only so many ways to go with a stars & stripes theme.