Sol Sender, who led the creative development of the Obama ’08 campaign logo, has joined VSA Partners as a strategist. As principal of the design agency Sender LLC, Sender developed the design strategy and directed a team of designers that created the defining symbol of the 2008 campaign.
The Obama ’08 assignment began in late 2006, when Sender’s firm was hired by MODE, a Chicago-based motion design studio with an existing relationship with David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief strategist.
Given two weeks to develop design options, Sender and two designers—Andy Keene and Amanda Gentry—produced multiple logos for consideration by the campaign, including a version of the now-famous “O” mark—a landscape in which of blue and red are united within the candidate’s last-name initial. The team’s refined Obama ‘08 logo made its official debut on February 10, 2007, when (then) Senator Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Il.
In the video below, Sender tells the story of conception and birth of the Obama ’08 logo, including the strategy behind it, developmental concepts and finalist designs for the identity not chosen by the campaign.
Part 2
