It’s been a helluva week here at the ministry. On Tuesday, I released the latest sorta-monthly office mixtape email. This one is called Here/There and this time instead of the usual download link, I decided to create a little mini site on which the good people who give a rats ass about what songs are in heavy rotation here at The Ministry can listen before downloading.

Also, some of you guys may know that I’m almost as much a bike dork as I am a design dork. Well, my two worlds came careening into one another this week, not once, but twice! First, Transportation Alternatives, the cycling dorkdum enclave of which I am a member (in spirit cause I still haven’t sent in this year’s donation), unveiled a new logo and website.

click here for larger pic

Developed by Doyle Partners, the new logo is a natural progression for Transportation Alternatives. It takes the old TA logo and makes it into a singular, identifiable, and hopefully memorable mark. While the old logo wasn’t necessarily bad, it suffered from an I-need-to-tell-you-everything-now design, which I think may have been necessary for TA when it was a more obscure organization. Granted, TA has been around since 1973, but there’s no denying that the recent cycling explosion, and the aggressive initiatives of the current NYC DOT (Dept. of Transportation) has given TA much more publicity. In that respect, the new branding is quite appropriate.

In other cycling/designer news, Bike Snob NYC did a thorough critique of 2009 Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador’s new logo.

The logo itself is an abstraction of Contador’s old logo which was an illustration of what Snob coined The Fingerbang, after Contador’s victory salute.

Contador with some other guy. Notice Contador’s hat bares the original Fingerbang logo.

I have to admit, I liked the old logo. Not because it was particularly good, but because it was campy. Think Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness. Still, Snob hit the nail on the head with this assessment, “It could almost be the insignia of a bank or securities firm–albeit one with a disconcerting tendency to try to screw you with an index finger. (Actually, Contador should really consider selling his new logo to Goldman Sachs.)”