You may say that waiting until after Obama's historical inauguration to examine some of the campaign logo options is 'a day late a dollar short'. I say nay!

Whether or not you care to acknowledge it, the 2008 Obama campaign was far and away the most successful marketing campaign in history. Only now, with it resting comfortably in the recent past can we truly examine it and recognize it's perfection. The logo was executed by the team at SenderLLC led by Sol Sender himself. I've included some quotes from Sol from an interview found here.

“We developed a lot of logos. Usually we only develop two to four, maybe five. There were fifteen, sixteen options, and we focused on three.”

Final Round:

#1:
“This masking of different photos with the O shape became an opportunity to say different things in different moments… The O could contain all these different ideas, possibilities and feelings.”




#2
“There was a lot of excitement about this. People felt this was really something new, something different. It was a kind of populist expression — everyone’s excited about Obama, people are talking… (but) it was a little too far out of the box. We felt that having a little more tradition in the mark was the smart way to go.”

#3
“For me personally, this was always the one.”


"Originally the stripes were kind of symmetrically expressed across the horizon, and as we went into final refinements we felt that giving it a little bit more dimension, a little bit more motion, ways to enter into it a little bit more for the viewer was a better way to go.”
So there it is, a glimpse into the process. Personally I think they nailed it, though I did love the first finalist with the "O" masking different photos. Finalist #2 was a bit too far out there and not quite executed very well. Especially in light of the work these guys have done for moveon.org that hits the more youthful feel. Not to mention the infamous Shepard Fairy poster. Behold the power of Graphic Design and Art to change the world! But I guess there wasn't even really much competition in that field. The McCain logo? yikes.

John Zappas, Graphic Designer
Lunch: I wish! I had some pizza yesterday. mmmm pizza.