Fun With Logos

One of Kurt Vonnegut's signatures (literally, see this post) is his use of an asterisk, which his representation of his asshole, to put it not very delicately. This has become a bit of a literary in-joke. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have and asterisk in their logo and some suggest it is a homage to Vonnegut. There is also a website, appropriately called Vonnegut's Asterisk dedicated to getting writers and artists to submit their own backside self-portraits.

So when WalMart recently changed their logo it caused some snickering. The old logo had a star between the 'l' and the 'M'. The new logo has a yellow starburst at the end of the name. Some people think the starburst looks like a, well, asterisk. Consumerist took it upon their themselves to mock up a Vonnegutified version of the logo, complete with a new slogan "Goodbye Blue Monday" which is also from Breakfast of Champions.

This all made me think of another ubiquitous star that could use some Vonnegutfying. See my version below.

I've added the catch phrase "So it goes." from Slaughterhouse Five. It's used whenever something in the book dies. While it may be premature to pull the sheet over the McCain campaign, it sure is looking grim for the Republicans. Today on "This Week" I heard Peggy Noonan taking solace that at least McCain isn't polling as poorly as Bob Dole did. Yet.

And while, I'm trashing political logos, I've never been much enamored of the Obama Rising Sun either. I thought for a while that it was just the pastel shade of blue they used which struck me as typically Democratically subdued. If you are going to use blue, be proud of it. But then I realized that it was the rolling hill that was subliminally reminding me of another iconic logo.



Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but Barack is the Rock Star of the campaign and now we know why.

Colors are so important in political signs. Take the blue and gold of the McCain Palin sign and change it to red and khaki and you have something that would look appropriate on a Mao jacket. And this color scheme subscribes to some of the more bizarre Manchurian Candidate theories surrounding McCain.



Of course, Obama's sunrise in a different color scheme could look very different.


Maybe Obama isn't a Muslim terrorist at all but a sleeper agent of Tojo ready to sell us all to the Japanese. I just don't think the Chinese would be willing to sell.