Bangor Daily News has an article out right now about how Republican Les Otten, exploring the possibility of running for governor of Maine in 2010, has ripped off Barack Obama’s “O” logo. However, what they fail to point is the fact that Otten’s entire website is a rip-off.

The website not only has the same layout (navigation placement aside), but the font colors, font sizes, placement of content, and content borders are almost 100% the same.

To really get the full impact of how horribly ripped off this site/logo is, let me show you some screen shots–you be the judge.

www.barackobama.com as of July 1st, 2009

www.lesotten.com as of July 1st, 2009

What’s worse is the blatant logo ripoff. I have compiled a progression from Obama’s logo to Otten’s, increasing Otten’s logo by 25% opacity until it was 100% opaque. I also blew up the image so you could see it in more detail. I apologize for the pixelation.

Obama/Otten logo overlay as of July 1st, 2009

After studying the logos on top of each other you notice a few things:

• The “O”s both have starbursts around them, Obama’s has 40 “arms,” Otten’s has 50
• The distance from the outer edge of the “O” to the beginning of the whitespace within is the same. The difference is that Otten’s has the stem that encircles his “O” making his border appear thicker.
• The stripes are in the same quadrant of the circle and have the same perspective–from left to right.

If you saw Otten’s logo independent of his web site/campaign, you might assume this was Obama 2.0, the launch of a new PR push within the Obama administration. It’s no coincidence that Obama’s campaign won a couple of advertising awards from Cannes Lion, those guys knew what they were doing–you see the “O”, you think “Obama.”

According to the Bangor Daily News, Edith Smith, Otten’s spokeswoman, explained that the web site design firm “used standard industry templates and colors found on political Web sites nationwide.”

Here’s a random list of other politicians’ sites that meet Smith’s “industry standards” without reusing Obama’s layout and logo. In fact, I can’t seem to find another site that does.

• Susan Collins
• John Kerry
• Olympia Snowe
• Michael Bennet
• Mitt Romney
• Sarah Palin