The narrative of graphic design history can be told differently depending on its historian, which always makes it intriguing to hear from a variety of designers with dissimilar backgrounds and career paths. Currently, the School of Visual Arts in New York is offering the MFA Designer As Author Podcast Series for download, including The Paul Rand Lecture Series in which Steven Heller lectures on design history. Other guest design lectures by John Holstrom, Paola Antonelli, Milton Glaser, Ellen Lupton and more are also available. Take advantage of this great design lecture podcast series while it is available.

Vote.

Now.

The U.S. presidential election is this Tuesday, November 4 and I could not be more anxious to cast my vote. With the voting ballot design debacle of 2000 and worries of the same problems this year (and even more concerns here), I felt it fitting to discuss some political campaign designs. While it is obvious that poor graphic design had an effect on the 2000 election, does design play a major role in how our candidates are elected? Yes. More than you may think.

Political campaigns are similar to a small corporation and branding is an extremely important factor that can lead to success or failure. Political campaigns that are able to turn their message into an effective brand in such a short period of time are the ones that appear to usually go the furthest. The New York Times recently published a political comic entitled “Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos” that discusses recent campaign logos and how their designs often affect the general public’s perception of their respective candidates.

Good design, however, can only help so much when it comes to our election process. In the 2004 presidential election, over three million votes—3,006,080—were cast and
not counted. Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s comic book,”Steal Back Your Vote“, discusses voter suppression, how it has happened in the past and how you can prevent it in upcoming election. It’s a quick and eye-opening read.

Hopefully we can learn from past elections and our current political events to make sure signage, ballots and political art improves this overwhelming political process for all Americans. For more on political art and design, check out some of these books on the subject. And be sure to vote on November 4th! None of us wants another debacle to unfold.

You don’t have to be the best artist to enjoy Scribbls and its easy to jump right in to contribute to a few bad jokes.

If you are a fan of the Favourite Website Awards, you may interested to know that its founder Rob Ford has recently compiled a list of dos and don’ts of web entrepeneurship in a book aptly titled “Guidelines for Online Success“. Ford offers advice and lots of real-word examples of successful and award-winning websites to help you improve your personal or business website. The book is co-edited by Taschen’s Julius Wiedemann.

One of my interactive design projects, a video microsite for the UK band Spiritualized, was recently selected as Communication Arts’ webpick of the day. The site acts as a retrospective for the band as well as a promotion for their new album, tour and video. The main objective of this project was to introduce their music to a younger audience while providing an online experience for their die-hard fans to enjoy as well.

SpiritualizedHarmonies.com