Scary times often trigger acts of stark beauty. This is the logo for a series of panels being held tomorrow at the New York Public Library which will explore "the past, present, and future of deceptive political speech, and assess what can be done to bring more realism and honesty into the conduct of America’s public affairs." I found the site via Michael Massing's excellent and disturbing essay at Salon, "We are the Thought Police," excerpted from the anthology What Orwell Didn't Know, which is being released in tandem with the NYPL conference.
The old symbol of the polis, the stars on the blue field, are replaced by urgent typography. Thought? Discourse? News headlines? In any case, the solid, unifying field of blue is gone, the sparkling sea of stars become transparent twitching words, pierced and pinned down by stripes-become-bars. A chilling yet elegant visual statement on a threatening state of affairs.
