Recovery Logo, It this what you want to see in recovery?

According to the Associated Press, The famous blue eagle of F.D.R.’s 1935 Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) was designed by the noted advertising art director Charles Coiner. But last week President Obama unveiled the logos for two economic recovery programs of his own: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (Tiger). “These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you the American people,” he said about the brand marks that will remind the public “that your government is putting the economy back on the road to recovery.”

And like their Depression-era predecessor, these marks did not emerge from whole cloth (or magic pixels). Steve Juras, the creative director of the Chicago firm Mode Project (which collaborated on the Obama campaign’s “O” logo), led the designers Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co. and Chris Glass of the design collective Wire & Twine to develop the right marriage of type and image. The White House guidelines for each logo were very clear. “It was explicitly stated that the ARRA logo not look ‘governmental,’ ” Juras said.