“Trump 14K Gold-Plated” [Foil Stamping]

We issued our now notorious “Trump 24K Gold-Plated” and “Trump 14K Gold-Plated” posters in September, 2016 as a warning—two months before the November 6 U.S. presidential election.

Inspired by Jesse Reed and Michael Bierut’s design of an official H monogram for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, we created an unauthorized campaign poster for Donald J. Trump. Whereas Hillary’s “H” pulls one’s eye to the letterform itself, the narrative implicit in our design requires the viewer’s gaze to oscillate between foreground and background; between typographic form and counter-form.

Four gold, rotating letter Ts project qualities associated with Trump, among them luxury and wealth. The counter-form suggests a conflicting narrative, however: namely, that Donald Trump’s disruptive and divisive rhetoric is creating metaphoric negative spaces in the fabric of American society. These spaces—fracture lines, really—snake through the design’s square silhouette to reveal a swastika. And while the swastika is historically a symbol of dynamism and cyclical renewal associated with the sun, in this context the symbol evokes hate speech and white nationalist demagoguery.

Let’s be clear: for some Americans the attractive aspects of Donald Trump’s public persona can obscure his repellent views. The tension in our design between positive and negative space—between luxe gold foil letters and the matte black swastika—is meant to mirror this dualism. Ultimately, however, our design seeks to reveal the ugliness of Donald Trump’s world view.

We originally offered this poster in exchange for a donation to the ACLU or Planned Parenthood.

COLLECTIONS

• Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG), Los Angeles
• Deutsche Plakat Museum, Museum Folkwang, Essen

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EDITION: 35 signed and numbered; 73 unsigned; 2 artists’ proofs

INSCRIBED VERSION: Of the total edition, some of the unsigned posters were inscribed with the following handwritten text: “DESIGNISPLAY.COM/NO TRUMP” and “@DESIGN_IS_PLAY.” (See last image.)

DIMENSIONS: 18.75 x 22.5 inches
MEDIA: Gold foil stamped with registered embossing on #130 Classic Crest Smooth Epic Black Cover

PRINTING: Oscar Printing / San Francisco
DESIGN: © 2016 Mark Fox and Angie Wang / Design is Play / San Francisco

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Domestic shipping (USA only) is free via USPS or UPS Ground. Please allow 2–3 weeks for delivery. For international shipping, please inquire.