Branding the recovery

WSJ:

At the Department of Transportation Tuesday, Mr. Obama unveiled a new logo for projects funded by his $787 billion stimulus plan and announced the first infrastructure project to receive funds.

The logo — with a three-leafed sprig for green jobs, a set of gears for infrastructure, and “recovery.gov” beside a field of stars — will be used to brand projects as well as raise the visibility of the White House’s economic initiatives and try to dramatize their impact.

This is interesting and I think it’s potentially smart. I’ll leave it to others to critique the actual design — and I expect there will be plenty of critiques. But as is so often the case with logos (including the vaunted Obama campaign logo), what will really matter won’t be simply aesthetics, but repetition and context. If people really start to see this a lot, connected to actual work being done, it will have the desired effect: “Wow, that stimulus money is making things happen.”