This week is the Democratic National Convention. Organisers scheduled it for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but that’s obviously not happening. This post is a short one, but like last week’s not entirely about data visualisation. I want to take a quick look at the identity or logo for the event.
It’s a simple lockup and features D20 in a Helvetica-like grotesk typeface (update: it looks like it’s Neue-Haas Grotesk) with a star imposed atop the D at a slight angle such that the tops of two points are vertically aligned with the stem of the letter. It allows for an arrow to be drawn out of the shape to point forward.
Then we get to the 20. It has the Lower 48 imposed in the 0 to be the letterform’s counter.
But what about Alaska and Hawaii?
To be fair, it’s not like we haven’t mentioned this before. And even in political campaigns we’ve seen this approach taken, remember just four years ago?
That all said, what I do like about the design of the Democratic Convention version compared to the Marco Rubio version is the treatment of the shape. In the convention version, we have a greatly simplified shape with fewer features. Compare that shape to an actual map and you’ll see it wildly incorrect. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula anyone?
Whereas in the Rubio version, you can see it is more geographically accurate, but that makes the shape fuzzy and indistinct at small scale, harder to read. Florida and New England are spindly and Texas barely points south.
We really should drop this visual language, but if we are going to insist upon using it, at least do it well. And that’s what we get out of the D20 Convention mark.
Credit for the pieces to their respective design teams.
This is not exactly data visualisation or graphic design. But it made me laugh the other day. And since we all made it to Friday, we could all do for a good laugh. Classify this under my interest in branding and visual identities.
Two weeks ago President Trump gave a speech at a conference for young conservatives. Uncontroversially, the organisation hosting the event projected on the screen an image of the seal of the President of the United States.
Or did they?
According to the report from the New York Times, it turns out some careless audiovisual guy lifted the wrong image from the internet. Instead of the presidential seal, he took an anti-Trump merchandise image.
He was fired.
So remember, properly source your images. A Google search isn’t the solution.
Happy Friday, all.
Credit for the imitation piece goes to Charles Leazott. I have no idea who designed the original seal.