McRib Update

It has been brought to my attention (through more mindless web browsing) that McDonalds has launched a viral marketing website centered around the McRib. Long time kawabunga.com readers are probably aware of my previously documented fascination with the sandwich. Accordingly, the ad agency has positioned mcrib.com as a pseudo-"farewell tribute" to the McRib - although even the most casual observers will note that the creatives routinely alternate between 2005 and 2006 as the year of the McRib's demise.

What stuck out, however, was a curious similarity between one of my blog illustrations and one of their T-shirt iron-on designs. (Download their ZIP file, or click on "Tour shirts" on the McRib microsite to see it for yourself.)

On the left, my Tufte-esque blog illustration. On the right, the McDonalds rendering, decked out in the effective Cooper Black, no less. Just a case of coinicidence? Or is there a fast food e-marketer burning deep within my soul, just waiting to bare itself out?

Unfortunately, I can't tell which isometric rendering of reconstituted pork and bun came first, but I do know that my McRib entry was posted in January 2005, and the McDonalds PDF file was last updated in October 2005. Indeed, truly one of life's great mysteries.