A Harris-Walz presidential campaign sign shares its message from a Lawrence lawn. (Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)
“Yikes.”
That was my immediate thought at seeing the first yard signs from the Harris-Walz presidential campaign as they popped up in Kansas yards this summer. The signs were framed in a slight white border that surrounded an inky, deep blue background. The words — also white — identified the candidates, with Harris’s name logically dominating the sign.
All caps? Yes. Alignment? Centered. Font? Sans Serif. Besides a disclaimer and website address, that was it.
The simple campaign signs looked like a first draft. Certainly the signs would get a makeover after the fledgling campaign found its footing, I figured. Afterall, President Joe Biden had just stepped away from the top of the ticket. They needed time.
And yes, the campaign did redesign the logo, but with tweaks so minor that you and I would strain to see them. Call in your local typographer to spot the small sizing changes. It was essentially the same logo, and this one was final.
Design gurus defended the stark, type-only logo. They explained that it could be printed on all kinds of products, like the logos of Coca-Cola, Cartier or NASA. All of those logos look great on a T-shirt. There was, designers for the campaign argued, no need for decoration or complementary colors.
With this bold and sparse design, the campaign could print the logo on cool camo hats to play on Tim Walz’s Midwestern charm. Were they mocking Trump’s MAGA hat on their website, saying the camo hat was “The most iconic political hat in America”? (Yes.)
Plus, the logo could pop off the energetic design of a floral “Our bodies, Our vote” hoodie by designer Ulla Johnson ($85). True enough: The logo had the heft to be read on those backgrounds and virtually any other.
Even if the logo looked good on hats and jackets, shouldn’t the logo have interest on its own?
The yard signs. The banners behind the rally stage. They are all campaign signs relying on that official campaign logo. Even on a small scale, buttons are simply mini-campaign signs. Isn’t the campaign’s logo still the ultimate visual messaging?
As much as Harris-Walz design defenders might stick up for the basic beauty of their logo, the front yards of their biggest fans are saying the logo was a weak choice.
This weekend I was in Massachusetts, specifically Cape Cod, where Biden overwhelmed Trump by almost 25% in the 2020 presidential election. So, there were tons of Harriz-Walz signs. But not necessarily the official campaign signs.
Some signs were cheeky. You may have seen the “Harris-Walz, OBVIOUSLY” signs. These signs speak with two voices. They either say, “If you know anything about me, neighbor, you should know I would never vote for the other guy, obviously.” Or, “Trump isn’t a serious candidate, obviously.” Neither of those condescending messages can be helping Democrats sway undecided voters.
There were cat signs , featuring cats with patriotic sunglasses, patriotic hair colors and patriotic hats. For those in on the joke, these feline signs play on the endless memes about Harris being a childless cat lady and hoping to rub Vance’s face in his supposed electoral flub.
There were also punctuation signs, combining the image of a comma with “- LA” to pronounce Kamala’s name for us. It’s a pun, but a tough punchline to comprehend as you are speeding past in your car.
All of these Harris-Walz signs say more about the person who bought the sign than the candidate, campaign or platform. They are goofy bumper stickers for your front yard. Or a concert T-shirt. Each sign functions as political fan art, like a GIF staked into your front yard, an in-joke for you and your fellow groupies.
According to a Fast Company article , this was what the Harris campaign was hoping to avoid when they designed the campaign logo.
“We wanted to be self-conscious in creating an identity that didn’t feel unnecessarily showy or flamboyant like Trump,” Ben Ostrower, the founder of the agency, who provided creative direction for the logo, told Fast Company in August. “Just simple, identifiable from far away—strong and to the point.”
This all reminds me, in an odd way, of the jokes I have been telling my son lately. They are goofy puns that should not ever be uttered, let alone printed here. Each time he doesn’t laugh, I explain the joke, which makes it more deeply unfunny.
If the campaign needed to explain how brilliantly restrained their design would be, well, maybe it wasn’t so brilliant after all.
After all of this deliberate thinking, it seems that by providing such an un-glamourous and sparse logo, the campaign invited supporters to play. It was as if they were saying, “We made you something boring, so that you can toss it aside and do something fun instead.”
If you click away from the Harris-Walz campaign store and go shopping online for unofficial signs, the designers venture away from the original campaign logo. You can get one with a fluttering American flag and the words “Truth Hope Decency.” Another sign adds a simple red line and a more obvious tint of blue as if to patriotize the sign a bit more. A few of them border on plagiarizing Trump’s yard sign design by echoing the placement of stars (at the top) and the year (at the bottom).
With the cats, the colors, the commas, Democratic voters wanted more than the campaign was offering.
For the Democratic Party, this is unexpected good news. While they might have been anticipating a serious and conventional pitch to voters, the last three months have been more of a joyride for their diehards. They are celebrating Harris’s laugh. They are wrapping their arms around Walz’s folksy coach-dad energy.
The sheer silliness of the signs reflect this U-turn of optimism. After all, can you design a 2024 sign that lifts up Biden with a goofy joke?
Contrast this whimsy with the design conservatism of the Trump campaign store . By conservatism here, I am referring to design, not political alignment. The 2024 logo is really a retread of the Trump-Pence logo from 2020 . Four years later, the Republican presidential logo is roughly the same, still promising to “Make America Great Again.” So, please don’t blame me for only giving it a few paragraphs.
One Republican twist for this election? The Trump-Vance online store delights in targeting signs to every demographic, from “Veterans for Trump” to “Jewish Voices for Trump,” not to mention gun owners, Latino Americans, Black Americans and “believers.” Supporters can also reveal a bit about their political optimism with a brighter blue sign or, as a contrast, a “Never Surrender!” sign with a black background.
Finally, Trump voters can opt to seemingly drop Vance from the ticket. There are two signs that are almost identical — except one omits the VP pick completely . (Sorry, J.D., but we need to craft signs for those “Yes, Donald, but no, J.D.” households.)
Even for signs not being sold by the campaign, the designs from the right are on message. Some online retailers switch around colors and word placements, but they mostly crib the design of the official campaign sign.
One interesting exception is a “Fight” sign that pays tribute to Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt, complete with a photo of his bloodied face. Another sign takes us on a red-white-and-blue warp speed trip toward a Trump presidency with a zooming blur visual effect. Mostly though, Trump supporters seem to design and buy the campaign’s branding.
In previous presidential elections, you simply might have considered whether to get a campaign sign and if so, who to support. In 2024, there’s one more variable. Which political meme would look best in your front yard?
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here .
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