Hope Rising

DJ Stout was one of the designers invited to reconsider the logo of the Obama administration’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act for a feature in today’s issue of USA Today.

Stout’s take on the current logo makes use of the familiar Obama “O.” “Our logotype references Obama’s powerful and emotional campaign logo but uses it in a slightly different way to communicate hope,” says Stout. “The hope that with this expensive recovery effort there could be a ‘new day’ for our ailing economy.”

In Stout’s proposal, the website is the focus: “It seems to me that the most important part of the identity that they have now is the web address. In the logo’s current form it is getting lost and it actually looks more like an afterthought. Obviously, the old National Recovery Administration posters didn’t include a web address because the public had to get their information through newspapers, radio or hearsay. The new digital era gives the administration a much more powerful set of tools to distribute information and report on the state of the stimulus plan. Obama has already proven that he knows how to use the web. Our solution gets rid of the old-fashioned and overused icons of leafy plants and outdated machinery cogs and gets to the modern heart of the message. The Obama administration wants you to go to the website to find out about the recovery effort. That is, if you even give a hoot.”