What do you think about First Lady Melania Trump's Initiative 'Be Best' logo?

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The initiative in a nutshell

“It remains our generation’s moral imperative to take responsibility and help our children manage the many issues they are facing today, including encouraging positive social, emotional, and physical habits…”
— Melania Trump

The mission of BE BEST is to focus on some of the major issues facing children today, with the goal of encouraging children to BE BEST in their individual paths, while also teaching them the importance of social, emotional, and physical health. BE BEST will concentrate on three main pillars: well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse.

BE BEST will champion the many successful well-being programs that provide children with the tools and skills required for emotional, social, and physical health. The campaign will also promote established organizations, programs, and people who are helping children overcome some of the issues they face growing up in the modern world.

WELL-BEING
By promoting values such as healthy living, encouragement, kindness, and respect, parents, teachers, and other adults can help prepare children for their futures. With those values as a solid foundation, children will be able to better deal with the evils of the opioid crisis and avoid negative social media interaction.

SOCIAL MEDIA
When children learn positive online behaviors early-on, social media can be used in productive ways and can effect positive change. Mrs. Trump believes that children should be both seen and heard, and it is our responsibility as adults to educate and reinforce to them that when they are using their voices—whether verbally or online—they must choose their words wisely and speak with respect and compassion.

OPIOID ABUSE
Opioid dependence, addiction, and abuse are an epidemic in this country. BE BEST will support the families and children affected by this crisis, bring attention to neonatal abstinence syndrome, and help educate parents on the importance of healthy pregnancies.

I can see where the childlike look could be appropriate. Unfortunately, it mostly looks like an uncomfortable conglomeration of being casual, awkward and not something a child would draw. Forced, unnatural and calculated playfulness is how I’d probably describe it.

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I’m not a fan of this. As Just-B said, I’m sure they were going for childlike letterforms, and I see they were playing off the B and E repeating. On the plus side, they didn’t repeat the same B and E. I don’t think it comes across as a cohesive whole unit, though. I wonder who did the design work.

Not that this is the type I would have come up with, but I think this connects the BE and BEST and offsetting the words, even just a little, makes it less static looking.

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It makes me think of special needs children.

Jared was probably put in charge of making it …

:wink:

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Only one can be “the best.”

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I was guessing Barron.

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Seth Meyers said it all :smiley: LOL

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The whole thing makes a lot more sense when pronounced with a Slovenian accent.

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I would agree with that :wink:

“Be Best” isn’t even proper English - it makes no real sense. “Be Better” or “Be The Best” maybe.
It is the Slavic languages like Russian that tend to omit the definite article. Either that or just bad English.
Embarrassing.

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If you want to be better than “Good,” you want to be “Best.”
If she’s helping kids and families, she can call it whatever she wants.
Or everyone could go back to focusing on her hat and shoes du jour and postulating whether or not they are appropriate.

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I’d rather she inspired kids to “Do” Best, instead of “'Be” Best. I think that would be better for the culture.

The word “be” is static, but life is not static. An affluent kid born on third base who thinks he hit a triple can “be best.” The kids that think they “are” the best will try to maintain the status quo. Kids will continue to be grades obsessed, thinking school is about proving what they know rather than learning something new. It will be all about the trophy instead of the performance. They will grow up to “be” one of those bosses who are more concerned with keeping their job by keeping everyone else down rather than delegating authority so they can get more done.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”
― Harry Truman

She did the design herself according to sources.

DZ, why do you think that what she is doing applies to affluent kids? The most impacted kids are those who don’t attend school, think grades are stupid, and become pretty much unemployable as adults.

I think it’s an odd focus to equate the opioid “crisis” to the values of healthy living, encouragement, kindness, and respect and an even greater stretch to link the social media thing to the opioid crisis.

Kids have no values, except for the ones they are taught by example.
Today’s kids are being raised by the Participation Trophy generation, or in broken homes, or have parents working 2or 3 jobs just to keep afloat, or have family members addicted to drugs of many kinds. It isn’t, or shouldn’t be about the affluent or even the moderate income kid already doing well in school. I actually don’t think it does.

The aim sounds like it should be more at the parents to encourage kids by showing them better values at home. In which case “Be on your Best behavior” might be more apropos.

But again, any little bit she wants to do to help, I’m not going to criticize her logo.

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I don’t think that. You’re reading way more into my criticism in her choice of words than I’m reading into her choice of words. I’m only saying that the word “do” is better than the word “be” for the overall cultural message of the slogan. I’m not criticizing the policies behind the slogan. I thought we were criticizing the design of the logo and slogan. That’s what we graphic designers do.

That explains a lot. I know the Whitehouse has an official calligrapher as part of the staff. I wonder if he was involved.

Seems awfully shortsighted to launch a big initiative from the Whitehouse with branding designed by an amateur. Then again, amateurism is a hallmark of this administration.

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Her level or branding design experience / knowledge has nothing to do with it. The same sort of puerile commentary was thrown upon the 2012 Olympic logo and branding done by a world class studio …Wolff Olins.

Read today where Trump and crew recieve 91% negative coverage … yep! 91% …well done people.

And it seems from this perspective nobody within his family or crew (which now includes folks such as Mr. West) are off-limits.

No good deed goes unpunished.

There was a good deed?

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