The (photographic) source of all hope.
So you’re an intrepid journalist seeking to find out the source photo of that classic ‘HOPE’ poster, you find one photo you think matches, and you persue and try and prove it to the world, writing an epic article about your struggle to identify the original photographer. An interesting article it sure is, and the author promises to open up an exhibition with the photograph neatly displayed with the poster.
Only one problem really. You are wrong, and thanks to your enterprising nature, wrong on an epic scale. Turns out that a single Flickr user, stevesimula found the actual photo which matches about a thousand times better.
The diagram below was made by stevesimula and shows our intrepid journalist’s theory up against this much more sensible Flickr users:
It just goes to show, mistakes happen, and also Obama has had one too many photos of him taken. Also, a quick TinEye search reveals this is an AP photo, so I hope that helps in your continuing search.
On a more personal note I’m hoping (no pun intended) to pick up one of these posters when I’m in New York next week. Will I succeed?
This truly is unreported news, so as the only reader of my blog, it is your responsibility to spread it!
Happy new year, and welcome to the future!
Aye, I will probably make some sort of future themed reference every time we click up a number on the old year-o-meter, but it’s only once a year, or twice, if you really think about it too much.
The past year was interesting and exciting, from doing work experience at Channel 4, to getting mugged, to seeing the next president of the United States, in person. I can’t say it hasn’t been eventful.
The future is an uncertainty, as I’ve proven with the past year, anything can happen. So we’ll see, have a great 2009, you deserve it.
Obama’s Logo Options
If you want to see what Obama’s logo options were for this election, which, as you can see, could have looked very differently, check out this article on the LogoDesignLove blog: here.
Will Obama rebrand the Presidency?
Well a lot of people were hoping for an Obama victory (including, on occasion myself), and it looks like they got their wish. Obama obliterated his rival John McCain, through what is undoubtedly the most expensive largest and most well managed presidential campaign in American history.
What many are wondering though, is since his campaign was so marketing based, can Obama live up to the hype? Others have asked, since the campaign was so well managed, will the presidency be as well?
Well it seems that we already have some indication, after only a couple of days since Obama became ‘President Elect’, there is already ‘Change’ afoot, albeit in website form, it seems Obama’s campaign team has not abandoned him now he’s won the contest, and the slick design aspect of Obama’s approach continues. His team, now called the ‘Obama-Biden Transition Project’ has set up a website that may point the way forward to how he’ll manage the presidency, Change.gov
This website, seemingly as well designed as his original BarackObama.com site, sets out what Obama plans to do and continues several aspects of that site, including a blog. Now the last person I want to sound like is the guy who told John Oliver that it was incredibly important that the next president be able to use Flickr and Twitter. But online seems to herald the most changes, at least in the short term.
It seems that was for the best that I wasn’t addicted to Obama’s social presence, (at least for the moment), since Obama’s twitter has been dormant ever since he (or once of his staffers) thanked those who helped “make history” on the 5th, and Obama’s flickr was last updated on the 6th with photos of Obama with family of before and during Obama’s victory, and later speech. From the looks of it, these were used simply campaign tools to gather support from an internet savvy audience, and there is no sign of those earlier tools (apart from that blog) on the President Elect’s new site.
Does this abandonment of internet tools mean that when Obama becomes president, even this blog and site will go? Or should we see the Change site as a sign of something more?
I mentioned earlier the slick design that the original BarackObama.com site and the Change.gov site both share, however I don’t know much about how much power the President gets over their identity or that of the white house, but I would bet that if Obama’s team could change it, they would. This from the team that caused such a raucous by giving Obama a seal before he was even elected (see image above).
Will Obama rebrand the Presidency? And will his online efforts change politics forever? I don’t know, but there’s always the… hope.
A Brighter Day will Come
I do listen to Adam Curry who says that it doesn’t matter who anyone votes for in the U.S. election, because we’re all screwed anyway, but I’m certainly of the opinion that Obama is going to make the best of the two candidates. This vid is a great example of design and typography too so, enjoy:
Obama ‘08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.
My Experience at Channel 4 (and my photos of London!)
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get a chance to experience what it’s like working for one of the UK’s largest broadcasting corporations, Channel 4. It was strange since (because of having no television and a mac laptop) I hadn’t even watched Channel 4 over the last year!
As you might know, Channel 4 doesn’t make any of it’s own programmes, it commissions and buys them from independent production firms. Even Channel 4 News is not produced from within the companies own building. Their main building can be seen in this ad for (coincidentally) Channel 4’s Generation Next season:
Yes I went through that building many times and travelled and waited for those lifts! So you’re probably wondering what the heck I was doing at Channel 4 and what I saw. Check after the break for the goods, and my photos! (more…)
Clinton’s Law of Politics…
Awesome.
Virgin Media CEO: Net Neutrality is “Bollocks”
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DigitalSpy.co.uk reports that the CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett has attacked the principle of Net Neutrality, where ISPs stay hands off on the content they deliver, and not degrade the speed of any content, as “Bollocks”.
The CEO said that Virgin is already in talks with some providers to make their content delivered faster than others. This is a huge issue as was discovered by the BBC earlier this week when ISPs threatened to throttle the iPlayer if the publicly funded corporation didn’t help pay for additional bandwidth costs.
The United States seems to be on a fast track to Net Neutrality, with many politicians, such as Obama repeatedly stating it as an important policy measure, meanwhile in the UK and Canada, ISPs seem to be taking ever greater measures to make sure any such principle can never take hold. Ofcom (the UK’s communications watchdog) has sadly taken a “hands off” approach to the issue.
It can only get worse from here.
Pray.
Presidential Campaign Poll: Who won?
Well we are several months away from knowing who will win the election, and the respective parties haven’t even finalised who is their candidate. However I have dared to ask the impossible question, who do the amazing audience of this website think should be the next president of the United States of America?
And you didn’t disappoint.
This was very interesting, as we had many votes varying from party to party. The winner was Barack Obama, as you can see, he had my vote.
One vote below hoever, Ron Paul proved to be everyone’s favourite grand-pa with his libertarianism, which you know is pretty inspiring, but still, has he got much of a chance? No offense.
The last few days saw stragglers votes with Hillary Clinton getting one vote and then, strangely, perhaps, Huckabee getting a vote today. All I can say is wow. If McCain becomes president, we didn’t see it coming.
Thanks so much for voting, and we will have a new poll later today!