Team USA’s uniforms for the Tokyo Games are sexy and sustainable
I’m an absolute sucker for Olympic uniforms. Nike’s Medal Stand collection for the 2020 Games not only looks great, it’s made from recycled materials. Also in this week’s issue:
Notes on campaign design: Cory Booker’s Senate refresh
The Buttigieg campaign branding is up for an award
How artist JR used art to “get rid” of a wall at a prison
Yours,
P.S. Sunday’s New York Times crossword includedemoji clues. Amazing.
Trumpception
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 52-48 and 53-47 to acquit President Trump of impeachment charges he abused his power and obstructed Congress.
On Thursday, Trump took a victory lap in the East Room and held up a copy of the Washington Post with the headline “Trump acquitted” during his remarks.
On Friday, the Washington Post published an image of Trump holding up the front page of the Washington Post on the front page of the Washington Post.
Here’s how the Washington Post TikTok covered it.
Notes on campaign design: Booker’s Senate refresh
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is out with a new visual identity for his Senate reelection campaign, designed by the creative agency Wide Eye and inspired by his presidential campaign branding.
“We knew we wanted to do something that wasn’t a complete reinvention,” Wide Eye creative director Ben Ostrower told Yello. “Part of the challenge here was don’t break what’s not broken.”
The Booker logo uses a modified version of the typeface Plak Black Condensed. Like his presidential campaign, it uses a red, white, blue, and black color palette. Because Senate campaigns don’t have the resources of presidential ones, Booker’s new identity was simplified for easy use and has a single logo.
The campaign reached out to Wide Eye shortly after Booker dropped out of the presidential race, and the agency sent over a questionnaire to start the project. One of the sillier questions they ask clients that doesn’t always get a constructive answer is, “If the campaign was a TV or movie character, who would they be?” The Booker campaign’s response was Jean-Luc Picard from “Star Trek” (Booker is a major Trekkie, and loves Picard for both his “haircut” and intellect).
“Not only did we need to respect [Booker’s] existing brand, but we needed to have fun leaning into the fact that he’s bald,” Ostrower said, as well as “not be afraid to be a little technical with the typeface.”
With Plak Black Condensed, he said, “if you squint a little bit, it looks futurey.”
The Buttigieg campaign branding is up for an award
Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign branding and design toolkit is up for the Best Brand Identity category at the Shorty Awards, which recognizes social and digital media. Buttigieg got dunked on for the entry by some on politics Twitter, but I do think it’s important to point out that the campaign didn’t enter for the award, Brooklyn creative agency Hyperakt, which designed the identity, did.
I can understand each side of how people feel about the entry. On one hand, it does feel a bit weird to have a campaign brand up for an award in the middle of a primary, and the line in their entry that read “Several candidates (primarily the women in the race) allowed personal identity to drive their visual brand,” is a bit yikes. But on the other hand, awards like these are a way agencies establish credibility. As Hyperakt tweeted, “that’s what you do when you’re proud of your work in this industry.”
The Buttigieg campaign brand is up against Adidas’ Runtastic, an Arab content creators talent competition called Sadeem, the Houston Texans’ #WeAreTexans campaign, and a typeface commemorating the Soviet Union in World War II by Russian state media channel RT. Last year’s winner in the category was “Girls Do Poop” by Poo~Pourri.
Team USA’s uniforms for the Tokyo Games are sexy and sustainable
Credit: Nike
When America’s Olympians take the medal stand this summer in Tokyo, they’ll be wearing Nike jackets made from recycled polyester and pants made from recycled nylon with recycled polyester mesh lining and zipper pulls made from recycled rubber. Nike unveiled its 2020 Medal Stand collection last Wednesday, and it’s inspired by the medals made from recycled electronics that will be handed out at the Games.
Medalists will also wear Nike’s Vapormax, footwear made using 75 percent recycled materials in a colorway inspired by the mix of textures and colors seen in piles of waste from a distance.
“As the growing climate crisis continues to disrupt competition and training, Nike’s sustainable innovations signal the brand’s commitment to helping protect the future of the planet — and, consequently, the future of sport,” Nike said in a blog post about its competition apparel for the Tokyo Games.
Here’s a look at uniforms for the U.S. women’s basketball and men’s and women’s soccer teams:
And here are uniforms for the U.S. track and skateboarding teams:
How artist JR used art to “get rid” of a wall at a prison
Credit: @JR/Instagram
JR’s latest piece is the lower half of nearby mountains pasted on the walls at the California Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in Tehachapi, Calif., north of Los Angeles.
“No more walls,” he said in an Instagram video of the project. “Making the wall disappear today.”
It’s not JR’s first piece at the facility. Last year, he worked with inmates to install a large-scale mural visible from the air that showed 48 people who were or had been incarcerated. Interviews with the participants were available on JR’s app.
Alice Marie Johnson says she doesn’t feel used by the Trump campaign’s ad
Credit: Trump campaign ad screenshot
Johnson told the New York Times she was aware of backlash to the Trump campaign’s Super Bowl ad that she starred in, but that she doesn’t feel used.
“Some people say, ‘Oh, this poor lady is being used,’” she said. “I don’t feel like a prop. To have criminal justice reform as the centerpiece of the Super Bowl ad, that lifts everyone up in this arena.”
She said she wasn’t a political person and had no plans to campaign with Trump, but that criticizing Trump was also out of the question.
“Can you imagine turning on someone who saves your life?” she said. “Just on a personal level, can you imagine?”
Lead singers for Imagine Dragons, Neon Trees lobby on the Hill
Credit: @danreynolds/Instagram
Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, Neon Trees’ Tyler Glenn, and former “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Carmen Carrera visited Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers last Wednesday to advocate for the queer community and for legislation including a bill that would prohibit Medicaid funding from being used for conversion therapy. They met with lawmakers including Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
Reynolds founded LOVELOUD, a music festival in Utah in support of the LGBTQ community there, and while in Washington he told Billboard that he was also close to putting on another festival on the National Mall following the 2017 mass shooting in his hometown of Las Vegas.
“We were this close to putting it on. I’m not going to name-drop, but there were big artists on board,” Reynolds said. “But we could not rally enough big country artists, and so we didn’t do it because the last thing I wanted it to feel like was the far left coming forward and trying to get rid of guns. We weren’t trying to get rid of guns, we were just saying we need reform.”
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