I’m as excited as anyone about the upcoming inauguration, but I’m starting to get kind of pissed off at the rampant use of Obama’s brilliant iconography and slogan to sell just about anything in Washington these days. Given, the man didn’t trademark the words “Hope,” or “Change,” but I can’t help but think it dilutes the message – and is almost patronizing to what was a tremendous campaign – when you try and sell soda, or furniture, using the same phrasing. For example:

This is just one of an entire series of Ikea ads that are plastered throughout the Farragut North Metro station in D.C.

These ads were lining my Metro station – Van Ness – and my art director notes how strikingly similar the new Pepsi logo is to the Obama “O.”

And here’s the headline from an email I just got from a furniture company (that I honestly don’t even know the first thing about). The blantant “O” symbol is borderline copyright infringement and pretty ridiculous really. Interesting though, how all three ad “campaigns” are using yellow to offset the obvious red, white and blue.

Tags: Barack Obama, Change, design, Hope, Ikea, inauguration, Pepsi

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Musings and Commentary, Washington DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.