The United Corporations of America
At a glance it's just eye candy: Steve Lovelace of Dallas has created a map of the United States, where each state is filled with the logo of a corporation that originated there. Gillette for Massachusetts, Anheuser-Busch for Missouri, Apple for California, L.L. Bean for Maine.
On his website Lovelace acknowledges that his choices are subjective, based on his judgment about which well-known corporations best represent the states they originated in, rather than objective criteria like choosing state's biggest employer or most valuable company. Some of his choices were a given (Starbucks for Washington, General Motors for Michigan), others were inspired (Pillsbury for Minnesota, Garmin for Kansas), while a few have a whiff of irony about them (Saks for Alabama, for instance).
Beyond the particular pairings, though, Lovelace's map leaves a couple of interesting, countervailing impressions. There's more than a hint of dystopia to his scheme- similar to the conceit David Foster Wallace used for calendar years in "Infinite Jest"-where each state is "brought to you" by a famous corporation. On the flip side, though, the map also conveys some of the irrational local pride we tend to feel for homegrown success stories, even if from a more objective perspective you'd think Ohioans wouldn't want to tout their association with Wendy's.
H/T Design Taxi.
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