Laughable, man. Ha HA!

However Bush’s presidency has turned out (that would be ‘tragic’), his choice of campaign font was perfect for what he ran on.

It’s an incredibly rare example of a sans-serif font used in a successful presidential campaign. Strength, staying-the-courseness, unyielding no matter what, etc. It fit. This year, the presidential election has changed the trend and the serif font candidates who played it safe lost it early.

 I’ve left out Rudy and Fred because, well, fuck them.

Typography is a delicate, somewhat subjective thing, especially when it comes to marketing consumer items- which, in many ways, presidential candidates are. Lots of interesting things have been written about the various candidates’  campaign branding, particularly font choice and how their fonts represent them as candidates. Thinking of fonts as people makes Obama’s choice of Gotham, from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, particularly interesting in a field of bold, serif, mostly conservative fonts. He has been successful so far, and being the Anti-Bush, his choice is somewhat appropriate. It’s a defining font, versus generic serif featured in the Hilary Clinton campaign materials (and all the drop outs too). It’s worth noting that although Obama uses a serif for his campaign logo (likely for legibility in smaller print and black and white), Gotham is the backbone of his campaign literature, his “Change” signs, and everything else with his name on it.

All of this importance to a mere font makes this so much more craven and sad.

fig. 1.1 an IMPOSTOR

fig 1.2 A Successful (and Original) Choice.

It’s a subtle thing, but it’s the subtlety that makes this linkage so effective and cheap. Typography is so essential to the Obama brand that to just take their signature font seems downright disrespectful. Almost like… plagiarism!?

As an aside- McCain’s semi-sans is very apt.