Doug Ross at Director Blue points out a curiosity from yesterday’s joint appearance by Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Springfield, Illinois yesterday, and not just the fumbled announcement or Biden calling his running mate “Barack America”.   Take a look at the signs passed out to the crowd (for free?) at the rally.  Do you see a difference between the way the names are presented in this design?

Note how the “Biden” fades into the blue of the sign.  This becomes more pronounced in the video of the event, and Doug has screencaps to demonstrate this.  Now let’s take a look at how previous campaigns have juxtaposed the names of the running mates with those of the presidential contenders:

Again, Doug has more examples, but this is fairly representative.  The running mate’s name doesn’t get put in a darker, less prominent color, although at times it gets a smaller font as with Bush-Cheney, which may have been a reaction to the meme that Cheney secretly ran the White House.  Both candidates get the same text color, usually for maximum contrast — while Biden’s name practically fades out into the background.

The font color was a deliberate choice by the designers.  Why not both names in stark white, the better to be seen clearly?  It’s almost as though the Obama campaign wants to de-emphasize Biden, which might also explain why they announced his selection in the dead of night.  Are they embarrassed already by Biden, or can Obama brook no encroachment on his share of the spotlight?