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Narrative control

We like to believe that simple is smart, especially when trying to communicate complex issues, so why then does Obama need a revision on his political narrative after such an impressive campaign to get into office. His strong, clear narrative (hope and change) helped the president connect with voters and explain the journey. The lack of one now invites opponents to craft a less flattering portrayal. The NYT comments on President Obama’s first year in office through the lens of controlling a clear story.

“You’ve got to have a clear, easy to understand story,” said Mark McKinnon, an image-maker for George W. Bush’s two presidential campaigns but a professed admirer of Mr. Obama. “Obama’s story is getting very complicated and confusing for voters. Obama is trying to do it all and appease too many constituencies. Voters like him and think he’s smart. But they’re not exactly clear whose side he’s fighting on.”

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Armageddon-Worthy Cloud

weird clouds

Wired reporting on the strange cloud observations. Still figuring out a root cause.

In hill country from Iowa to the Scottish Highlands, sky-gazers have reported some strange, ominous-looking clouds of late. Dubbed undulatus asperatus (turbulent undulation), the atmospheric anomaly could be headed where only 80-odd clouds have gone before: into the International Cloud Atlas. If it makes the cut, asperatus will be the first new addition in more than 50 years.

Where did it come from? Gavin Pretor-Pinney, president of the UK-based Cloud Appreciation Society, has a theory: “It’s warmer, moister air above and colder, drier air below, with an abrupt boundary in between.” Add wind passing over rolling terrain and “you get the same wavy effect as on the surface of water.”

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President Speech

Obama’s statements on closing Guantanamo and eliminating torture as a US policy struck me as very important. This clip, “because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger”, holds weight not just in the case of torture policy. It extends the message that we need to focus not on doing things right, but doing the right things to right our country. The right things may be difficult to accept initially, but that is the only path to sustainable change.

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Erik Spiekermann

Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is information architect, type designer (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk and many corporate typefaces) and author of books and articles on type and typography.

He was founder (1979) of MetaDesign, Germany’s largest design firm with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing and way-finding projects like Berlin Transit, Duesseldorf Airport and many others. In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. He is board member of ATypI and the German Design Council and Past President of the ISTD, International Society of Typographic Designers, as well as the IIID. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and now runs SpiekermannPartners with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco.

In 2001 he redesigned The Economist magazine in London. His book for Adobe Press,“Stop Stealing Sheep” has recently appeared in a second edition and a German and a Russian version. His corporate font family for Nokia was released in 2002. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal Academy in Den Haag. His type system DB Type for Deutsche Bahn was awarded the Federal German Design Prize in gold for 2006. In May 2007 he was the first designer to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the European Design Awards for Communication Design.

Erik is Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen and in 2006 received an honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. He has just been elected an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain.

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Bush on google search

Bush Statistics

For over two years now, US President, George Bush, has been topping Google searches for the term “miserable failure“. Now, all that’s about to change – what with Google having designed a new algorithm to minimize the impact of this ‘Google Bomb’.

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NSA’s Brand Problem

NSA

Good Will Hunting
written by Matt Damon & Ben Affleck

Will:Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.?

That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot. Say I’m working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed.

Now the politicians are sayin’, “Send in the marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number was called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard.

It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorroids.

And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it, while I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.