Please forgive me while I write about politics. Don’t worry, I’ll get to design by the end of the post…

So today is Super Tuesday, Americans and UK news correspondents alike are getting more and more frantic about it all (just imagine the US media taking such an interest in our own quaint elections) and the spotlight is on the two Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I don’t even know why I’m typing this, as I can imagine that anyone reading this post wouldn’t already know what they both had for breakfast this morning. Anyway, it’s a win win situation, Obama would be the first black president, Clinton would be the first female president. Both are several steps further along the evolutionary chain than George Bush…

The two are neck and neck, it’s too close to call. With almost identical policies, it’s a race being fought on personality, but perhaps the most striking difference between the two candidates is that according to the New York Times one is a Mac, and the other is a PC…

This comes from Obama’s visual style being seen as fresh and uncluttered, while Clinton shows a tendancy towards the generic way of doing things:

Their websites are a good example…

Apart from a mutual love of CAPS and the red, white and blue they are quite different to each other visually. Yes, they’re both down with the kids, plugging into Facebook, Flickr and YouTube left right and centre, but Clinton’s visual style is the generic US political campaign, complete with large friendly serifed surname while Obama’s is more like a web 2.0 startup and a lot easier on the eye. Clinton would be MySpace, Obama is Facebook.

Check out the murky world of US political logos here.

Barack Obama does indeed seem to have ignited a bit of a creative spark in some designers, there are some lovely posters here and here…

My favourite part of the Obama site? The bit at the bottom, where it says ‘Powered by hope’ (in caps).