From Salon.com’s Scott Rosenberg, a fairly hilarious case that’s bound to encourage all the worst in the phony-content-creation world.

Now, most folks with a conscience—and an understanding of how Google crawls the web—maximize their Google search ranking through good, clean code and substantial, regularly updated content.

Then there’s the so-called “content farms,” of which Associated Content is one of the most notorious: online sweatshops that churn out junk text all but unreadable by any actual human being, but loaded with keywords and search terms designed to capture high spots in Google search returns, i.e., to game the system.

Generally, Google’s very good at catching—and punishing—attempts to gain the system. But not always.

Rosenberg described his amazement at Googling to read about the recent n-word-loaded primetime self-destruction of Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

Now, it may have been my choice of search term, or it may have been that the event is already more than a week old, but I was amazed to see, at the top of the Google News results, a story from Associated Content. … Gee, maybe Associated Content is getting better, I thought. Maybe it’s producing some decent stuff.

Naturally, he clicked through and read (errors preserved):

The Dr. Laura n-word backlash made her quit her radio show. It seems the Dr. Laura n-word controversy has made her pay the price, as the consequences of herbrought down her long-running program. But even if it ended her show, it may not end her career. Despite being labeled as a racist, and despite allegedly being tired of radio, the embattled doctor still seems set to fight on after she leaves. In fact, the Dr. Laura n-word scandal has made her more defiant than ever, despite quitting.

Rosenberg jumps to a pretty dire conclusion pretty quickly: that Google’s lost its touch for good:

I still feel lucky to be able to use Google a zillion times a day, and no, Bing is not much use as an alternative (Microsoft’s search engine kindly recommends two Associated Content stories in the first three results!). But when Google tells me that this drivel is the most relevant result, I can’t help thinking, the game’s up. The Wagner tubas are tuning up for Googledammerung: It’s the twilight of the bots.

That’s going far too far, for my money. More likely we’re at a temporary high tide of junk content in the endless ebb and flow of junk and control. There’s plenty of us out here hoping so. And none of us work for Associated Content.

For further reading, a great link Rosenberg passes along: “The Google Sewage Factory” by Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.

Upon closer inspection, I learned it was about as un-boutique a publisher as you can get: Penguin, in a new “Great Ideas” series—the Russians, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Adam Smith, etc….a sort of brainy undergraduate’s dream team. At least it had been for me. Minus the Adam Smith.

Only this week did I run across the designer of the gorgeous, highly tactile covers: Mr. David Pearson, a London-based designer who specializes in book design and branding.

Aside from his portfolio, very definitely worth a look is his Flickr site, where he shares delicious scans of some of the original old-school sources of his inspiration, including these vintage Russian matchbook covers:

Lots to learn from a more innocent, Illustrator-free era, when you could be damn sure that the logo was going to reproduce well in black and white.

Some highlights:

And if you like that idea, what about branding a city?

Start researching the competition at Stadtlogo Design, a huge and endlessly fascinating gallery of logos designed for cities. It’s heavy on European examples, since the site is the work of German economist Wilfried Weisenberger (and is in German), but there are plenty of U.S. examples too.

The work ranges from the lovely…

…to the hideous…

…from the somewhat too abstract…

…to the definitely too literal…

…from the Abstract Expressionist-inspired…

…to the 60s-inspired…

…to the Clip Art-inspired…

…to the…well…uninspired…

…to the just plain bizarre:

The standout for me was Marvelous Keen Loony Bin, the 2005 senior degree animation project by RISD grad Lizzi Akana, now a Brooklyn-based animator and illustrator. Like all great art, it speaks for itself best…I’ll say only that the wild, grim humor in as much in the spirit of the immortal Nikolai Gogol as anything I’ve ever seen onscreen:

“Marvelous, Keen Loony Bin” from Lizzi Akana on Vimeo.

The utterly individual style brought to mind two other artists I love: Mr. Joe Sorren, whose work he graciously allowed me to use in a cover design for the literary magazine Meridian some years ago (the below is a more recent work) —

— and Gail Boykewich, who was featured in a July issue of the New Yorker and has an incredible wall-to-wall show at Mad One Jack’s in Hoboken until September:

Click through to the full campaign on the DesignBoom blog. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with the equally hilarious and disturbing Lego thong and tramp stamp:

Stephen has served as a media strategist for non-profit and social justice organizations including the Transportation Equity Network, the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, ISAIAH, and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

As a journalist and commentator, Stephen has worked on four continents for outlets including Agence France Presse, The Financial Times, The Moscow Times, BBC, CBC, and Pakistani Television.

Click on the image for the full-sized chart.

Julian sells a poster version here.

At last all is right with the world.

Well, almost. Having the great Jay-Z, a/k/a Sean Carter, a/k/a Jay, a/k/a J-Hov, a/k/a Hov, a/k/a Hova, a/k/a Jigga, a/k/a Jigga Man, choose WordPress is a great validation for the onetime little-blogging-platform-that-could — now a powerful, flexible content management system that drives a stunning array of websites by an impressive roster of users, including (Technorati says):

* CNN
* Fisherprice
* Wall Street Journal
* Forbes
* National Geographic
* Arena Magazine
* PopWatch Entertainment Weekly
* Nikon
* Pepsi
* Nokia
* Best Buy
* Ford
* Coca-Cola

On the other hand, for a man who makes videos like this –

– his current site is a little…basic.

We’re happy to help any time, J.

Prescient Media performed a comprehensive identity and web redesign for the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), a 41-state network of more than 350 grassroots organizations.

We also conceived and implemented a national media strategy that led to front-page coverage in the Washington Post, as well as prominent coverage in the New York Times, the LA Times, USA Today, the Associated Press, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the NY Daily News, NPR, and dozens of other outlets.

Prescient Media continues to work with TEN on media strategy, online outreach, and graphic design for web and print.