I keep lists of my ten most favorite just-about-everythings (in case anyone asks me for them). But occasionally, I add an eleventh for good measure. So, my eleventh favorite album cover of all time is the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour (above). Not only is it the oddest Beatles cover, it's the strangest album and film, goo goo ga choo, too. (Who was the Walrus, again?) The cover was designed by John Van Hamersveld, who also designed The Endless Summer film poster (bottom), the emblem of surf culture, and one of the more recognizable Jimi Hendrix posters (below), which he sells at his online poster store.

In this 41st anniversary year of the Summer of Love, it's nice to remember those who were responsible for the graphics of that age.

I have yet to see a company or firm integrate the John McCain brand into their own identity the same way that Barack Obama's has been used in conjunction with existing business identities. The New York design firm LOLZ has combined its logo and the Obama "O" as sign of solidarity and self-promotion for its unofficial Obama site. And my favorite vinyl toy company, Kidrobot, is touting Kidrobama with an integrated logo (below) that juxtaposes product and candidate.

The Obama logo is designed to fit perfectly into any agenda. There's now a site, Logobama '08, that invites you to customize your own Obama logos, even if you're not voting for him. Check out these counter-logos here (bottom) and the Flickr page here.

"Dying is easy, comedy is hard," the famous quote goes. Similarly (albeit ungrammatically), you could say, "design is easy, logos is hard." What Paul Rand called "the rabbit's foot" is a difficult conceptual design process even for masters of the form. But that doesn't stop designers from making logos, companies using them, and competitions from showering them with kudos when kudos are due--or not.
    After viewing the international winners of this year's Wolda, the Worldwide Logo Design Annual, I was a little dismayed by what the jury awarded "Best of the World" in the categories of both "Talent" (above) and "Professional" (below). The former was designed for a Japanese music label, Atsushi Yamamoto Records Tokyo KK, by Daniel A. Becker; the latter was designed by Landor Associates Sydney for News Limited's One Degree initiative to battle climate change.
    Although the upside-down elephant is amusing, and the One Degree mark (looking like a supplicant with bended head) gets the message across, I question whether they are indeed the "Best in the World" or just the best of what they had to choose from--a fundamental problem with all competitions. In fact, with the exception of the "Best of Malta" (below middle), designed for Safeguard by Bulldog, and the unreadable though nonetheless clever "Best of Serbia," (bottom, see the chairs?) designed by Kontra Studio, the rest of these "Bests" are rather lackluster. Maybe "Best of" is too loaded a term. Perhaps "Good of ..." would be safer.