A while back I had a super-secret brief encounter with kind-of sort-of working on a presidential web campaign. While I can’t say much about the experience it made me realize how completely out of the loop politicians are on web, design, brand, and social media. That is all but Senator Barack Obama. This post is in no way an endorsement of his candidacy for president, even though many would not put it past me to make a major decision based on the quality of someone or something’s logo design. If the president of the United States WAS required to be an All-American Brand Steward, Mr. Obama would the winner.

I have been secretly sitting back watching his online campaign blossom from the first seed of his candidacy with a logo to his full blown online brand campaign with a stunning website. I really wanted to investigate the ins and outs of the whos and whats behind this stellar brand, but I am not all that connected like that. You would think living in DC I would get wind of these things, but a few weeks ago the much more connected blog “Speak Up” broke the 411 on this mystery.

The logo was designed (jointly or separately, depending of what you read into each firm’s blurb) by Chicago-based Sender LLC and mo/de: “We were looking at the ‘o’ of his name and had the idea of a rising sun and a new day,” explains Sol Sender, “The sun rising over the horizon evoked a new sense of hope.” Sutton at least got the sun rising part right. “Undefined”, on the other hand, might be this logo’s strongest asset and the result of clever designers not someone “too inexperienced”.

The post goes on to reveal the sexy implementation of the Obama logo through each page of the site. I have to totally pull this from Speak Up because its so hot I can not handle myself. I get flustered and sweaty just looking at each iteration of the banner. For a more extensive look at this aspect of the Obama Campaign, please check out the “Speak Up” piece.

Overall the attention to detail is really what wins me over on this site. Each icon is carefully crafted and customized around the Obama brand. The only negative criticism I can really give is that I think they overdo it just a little in the main header with layers of texture and lens flair. Just a little over the top with the lens flair, but its ok… I can get past that.

I did a little more digging on who was responsible for the actual site design and found this post on The Bivings Report where “who” actually designed the site is discussed in the comments. With many merely speculated in the early comments, Ryan Terry later states that he wrote one of the designers on the Obama staff to find out if any of the rumors are a little true. The response he got was:

I am the Creative Director at Obama for America’s, new media department. There is, in fact, a team of people working on the site. All the rumors have their truths. Joe Rospars is the Director of New Media, he founded Blue State Digital, and we do in fact use Blue State Digital as the backend to our site. Chris Hughes the co-founder of Facebook, is in fact overseeing the my.barackobama.com portion of the website, activating users to take action in their communities. The teams consists of many others that all do remarkable work, including John Slabyk, who’s eye is blessed and has been a major force in the site aesthetic, and Michael Slaby the true machine behind the curtain. Not to mention the many other volunteers and staffers that helped in the site design at an absolutely break neck pace.

So there ya go, Obama has assembled a bad-ass team to put together a great visual web campaign . Its a very special thing to see a leader assemble and trust a creative team to take calculated design risks.

I grew up on Macs. I am a member of an all Apple family and currently live in all Mac Household. My first Mac was a Quadra 605 and I have never owned any sort of Windows machine. My family still holds on to a Flower Power (still running) in our attic. In 2002 I started my summer job at an Apple Specialist in Richmond. Back then there weren’t Apple stores, there were Apple Specialists who had on-site (knowledgeable) repair technicians. We used to throw midnight release parties for the new OSs and would rent out a local movie theater to broadcast Mr. Jobs’ keynotes. Some people think this sounds pretty dorky but It was the most fun I have ever had in my life. Everyday I woke up and got to share my passion with the Apple Community. And thats what it was… a community.

(Im not pissed off in this pic, I just didn’t know my picture was being taken at work)

Apple has inspired a culture that extends beyond a brand, it created a community and now that community is becoming mainstream. So was it a revolution? Perhaps it has just made people begin to think Different…ly.

This trailer got me thinking a little bit about how things have changed since my days working at Capitol Mac.

I attended a fantastic presentation by Steven Heller hosted by the Art Directors Club of Metro Washington DC on Friday night and he explained that Brand is a fetish… it is when people don’t just identify with something but embrace it. This concept fascinates me especially when it falls in the realm of an a-typical product. People get totally juiced up and excited over so many things; there are mini-cooper meet-up groups and people who are obsessed with Harry Potter, but I am fascinated when a group of enthusiasts rally around something meant to be functional.. often dry, and usually transparent… like a web browser. Firefox has organically grown an enormous group of brand loyalists using guerrilla marketing and online tactics that go far beyond anything that their competitors are doing. From that they have defied odds and currently maintain a healthy stronghold on a substantial percentage (36.3% in December 2007 according to the W3C) of the browser market. How are they doing it?

They are not evil.
Firefox is a project of the non-profit Mozilla foundation:

devotes its resources to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet. We do this by supporting the community of Mozilla contributors and by assisting others who are building technologies that benefit users around the world.

They go so far as to spell out exactly what they are all about in their own Manifesto which states their goals and principles. Dude, what is cooler than a manifesto? I mean Pirates and people who start revolutions have manifestos.

The first time I read this document my heart skipped a beat… an organization that believes in all the idealistic wonderful web things I do? OMG How can I not embrace that? An excerpt of three of their principles are as follows:

1. The Internet is an integral part of modern life–a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.
2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
3. The Internet should enrich the lives of individual human beings.

Openly stating and documenting all of their non-evil beliefs online in a manifesto makes them hard to dislike… and modern day pirates. Arrrr!

They make a great product & experience (which organically creates word of mouth)

There are lots of great advantages to Firefox, the customization really sets them apart from the other products to the average user. While being open and secure are big pluses, the average joe is going to notice all the fantastic plug-ins they can use to make their browsing experience unique.
As a Web Designer I constantly rely on (and recommend) the Web Developer Extension. My friend, the Catch-up Lady (an avid Firefox user) constantly recommends the All in One Gesture Add-on.

They have fun.

Fun designs, fun T-shirts and fun promotions abound. They don’t take themselves too seriously and that makes using their product that more attractive. They recently held a competition called Operation Firefox where they encouraged their users to use guerrilla tactics to place a 3.5 foot Firefox sticker in a public space. Insane challenges and a manifesto… pirates. Arrr!

They leverage successful online and offline marketing tactics
Spreadfirefox.com houses a complete toolkit that helps people spread the word online through photos, banners, and talking points as well as offline events where Firefox enthusiasts take to the streets. Rather than utilizing traditional marketing tactics Firefox has decided to go this low budget route leveraging and amplifying the word of mouth their product has already created and giving their users to do the same. They take all the work out of it, making it simple and effective.

They look good
Firefox’s logos, buttons, banners, and even T-shirts are all well designed. Its a pleasure to have the Firefox logo sitting in my dock, and their T-shirts are witty and fashionable. Their microsites like Operation Firefox and the Mozilla store all have organic tangible feels to them. Taking something like a browser that exists only in the online space and giving it a very offline feel.