At the end of 2006, Mode, a motion design studio in Chicago, approached Sol Sender, a graphic designer, to create a logo for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The resulting “O” became one of the most recognizable political logos in recent history. I spoke with Mr. Sender a few days after the election to discuss the evolution of his design.

Google now allows logged in users to vote for, delete and add new search results for any keyword. What does this mean to you and web site search engine optimization (SEO)? First see the video below about SearchWiki and what it does.

I just finished a job for a new client in a distant city who heard of me by happening across our critique of a logo for a business similar to his. He liked what I had to say, checked out my Web site (designed by CB Megatalent Stephanie), liked what he saw and gave me a call to design his logo and some starter collaterals (more to come). It was an absolutely delightful experience. How cool is that?

This is as good a reason as any to participate in critiques and give your comments some thought. Apparently, there are unseen others gathering around the table :-)

Google has been busy the past few weeks rolling out eye candy for their users. First they launched themes for iGoogle, then video chat for GTalk and now themes for GMail. They look pretty good and there is a good selection of minimalist, high contrast and illustrative themes. They even payed a lot of attention to elaborate footers. See a few more examples below.

Finding free images for use on your Web site, blog or design project can be a real pain. You could turn to some of the free stock photo sites out there. Some are pretty decent, but most of the images have a distinct "stock photography" look about them. Instead, try using images from Flickr.

Photo by Spoon Monkey.

Before you say "the images on Flickr are copyrighted, so they can't be used for commercial work," think again.

Here's how you can use Flickr images for free, without depriving the photographer of the credit he/she deserves.

This is a new project that I did for school. I was told to redesign a energy drink logo. So I chose Bullet. An obscure energy drink with a really cool name. The current design for it seemed to not be exciting enough to me. So I livened up the colors and made everything by scratch. I feel like the top part is a kind of funky. Please critique that. Maybe it's not too late to fix it. This is meant to be wrapped around a glass bottle, whereas the original was a can. It's all vector. My first serious vector work. I'd like opinions for future projects and perhaps a little critique on this current one, even though it has already been turned in. Sorry I haven't posted any new stuff in a long time. Lots of school work. Not enough time to get down to business and work on something for myself. Anyways, critique! :D

- Doug May

You'd think ANATOMY would be an important tool in a designers arsenal.

Following up on this earlier post about George W Bush ads.

Print and poster work for software-asli.com by Advertising Agency Bates141, Jakarta, Indonesia. See the making of gallery.

It reminds me of Gmail art:

Obama's campaign was a hit. Probably for the first time in history of presidential campaigns, all design elements were executed at a high level of professionalism. This probably played a great role in the overall success.

Starting from the identity most of the communication elements were executed with great skill and good taste. Let's see a few interesting items from his campaign.