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December 04, 2004

Ukrainians must choose: Decepticons or Autobots?

As a noted scholar of Eastern European graphic design and 1980s American comic books, I took notice of a coat-of-arms/abstract symbol that appears on the campaign paraphernalia of Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister with ties to old Russia who "defeated" opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the recent disputed election:

When I saw the image, I was immediately reminded of the coat-of-arms of another organization with ties to totalitarianism and oppression: The Decepticons.

The Decepticons are the nefarious crew of morphing robots ("Transformers") devoted to the destruction of the Autobots, a group known for its progressive and populist approaches to freedom and justice.

Here's the Decepticons logo next to Yanukovich's logo:

Compare:

• the peaks on the sides
• the eyelets in the lower third (inverted in the Decep's logo)
• the empty spaces on the edges of the lower third
• the strong diagonal lines
• the peak in the middle
• and of course the general shape of the shield

Really, if you just add two lines (one straight, one v-shaped), you get a close match:

Are Yanukovich and the Decepticons sharing a graphic designer? Maybe the Ukrainians shouldn't elect this guy. You never know.

Now, to be fair, there are a couple of similarities to the Autobots' logo as well:

The main similarities are the strong vertical center line and the location of the eyes. However, where the Autobots logo is horizontally oriented, the Deceps' and Yanukovich logos seem more vertically or diagonally oriented. Also, to be fair, the symbol is apparently extracted from Ukraine's official coat of arms. But I haven't seen Yuschenko leveraging it in the same way.

Coincidentally(?), opposition candidate Yushchenko has undergone a bit of transformation himself lately, but not because of the power given to him by Primus so he could battle Unicron.* Instead, it seems that a biological weapon or bad sushi is to blame.

ps. Now before any Ukrainians get mad at me for suggesting that the their country and the Decepticons are linked politically, let me just say that I love Ukraine and have visited that beautiful country many times, and am a big fan in particular of such dishes as borshcht with garlic pampushky and kartoplianyky.

Sources: Ukrainian logo (1, 2, 3), Decepticon logo, Autobot logo.

*"Unicron"? "Ukraine"? Hmm.

categories: Design
posted by adm at December 4, 2004 06:36 PM

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