Obama Logo / Nanidesu?
Striking resemblance to old mark for Knoth & Mead Company
Above: Top left, mark 8348 (Knoth & Mead Company), on page 26 of Al Cooper’s, World of Logotypes (Vol.3). 1982. Art Direction Book Company, NY, NY.
Above: Knoth & Mead Company, detail.
Above: Obama’s two color variation (sticker, see overprint) for the current campaign. This variation show strong associations, and I might suggest that the stroke width of the geometric O is also a strong sign.
Above: The official mark.
Above: A variation found on Obama Valley.
Geotypografika knows that these things happen, but more than stunned surprise sounded while paging through this book a colleague (Kindra Murphy) had borrowed from our library.
Here is a reference from Speak Up on the logo designers, which was “designed jointly… by Chicago-based Sender LLC and mo/de.”
You decide. Chicken, or egg?