It's been an ugly year for politics.
Well, if not ugly, then optically boring. With 47 days to go, what's visually striking about this presidential race is how visually unmemorable the whole affair has been. I asked a man who's a bit of a legend in the visual arts world, graphic designer Michael Bierut, to ruminate on why. A partner at Pentagram, he's the author of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design and co-founding editor of the Design Observer blog. If you're the sort who watches documentaries on fonts, you might remember his star turn in Helvetica: "'It's the real thing.' PERIOD. 'Coke.' PERIOD. In Helvetica. PERIOD. Any questions? Of course not." Bierut's an Obama partisan, no doubt. But he says that, "from a design point of view, I can definitely admire things that are done well, regardless of who's doing it."
So, Mr. Bierut, why hasn't 2012 produced the sort of indelible visual imagery that 2008 did? This year it seems like everyone in politics has achieved a similar level of bland design competence.