Trump campaign rebrands after web reacts

Last week, Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump chose Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate. In keeping with the campaign season, that also means that the campaign released a new logo to commemorate Trump’s choice.

The initial version of the new logo—it’s since been changed—featured a capital “T” for Trump essentially being inserted in a capital “P” for Pence. This part of the logo was colored blue and sat next to red, horizontal bars, mimicking Old Glory. In other words, it was the Trump campaign’s attempt to depict Trump and Pence as the stars of America. The campaign has since pulled this iteration of the logo, probably prompted by the mockery the logo was receiving on social media.

There were legitimate design choices in the original: For example, the use of the American flag in the logo showed an understanding of using a visual language that’s immediately familiar to all Americans, as a way of making an instant connection with voters, it’s effective; The positioning of the “T” over the “P” is also symbolic of the fact that Trump is the presidential nominee while Pence is his vice-president choice, so the design communicates that hierarchy as well; The unfortunate positioning of the “T” in the “P” has attracted mockery yet, when looked at from a purely design standpoint, it actually represents a stylized approach to design, a monogram.

Monograms are seen to be conventional and traditional, which is a huge part of Trump’s platform as he courts Republican voters. Further, the use of monograms, is usually associated with richer individuals, so its use in the first version of the Trump/Pence logo intended to convey wealth and status.

In spite of these design touches, the Trump campaign recently pulled the initial logo and replaced it with a less controversial and more conventional logo design, featuring just the type from the first version.

The second version is simple and straightforward: It simply shows Trump’s and Pence’s names stacked on top of each other, with Trump’s name boasting slightly larger type size than Pence’s. Trump’s name is blue while Pence’s is red, and the fonts for both names are clean sans serifs. Underneath their stacked names is Trump’s now-famous slogan: “Make American Great Again!”

According to Trump spokesman Jason Miller, the Trump campaign has a number of logotypes it’s considering. The final, official logo will be revealed this week during the GOP National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Marc Schenker

Marc’s a copywriter who covers design news for Web Designer Depot. Find out more about him at thegloriouscompanyltd.com.