Here’s the fonts Trump’s using on the new whitehouse dot gov
It's called Instrument.
This story was first published on Jan. 21, 2025.
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If fonts are a physical representation of a politician’s “voice” translated for the written form, then President Donald Trump’s starting his new term from scratch. Just after 12:01 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, whitehouse.gov was updated for a new administration with new fonts and a new layout.
The site is set in Instrument Serif and Instrument Sans, a pair of fonts designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Jordan Egstad. The serif, which is used for the “America Is Back” message displayed on the homepage, is a condensed display font that Google Fonts says “offers a contemporary take on some of the time-tested characteristics found in old-style serifs,” while the sans serif is variable and “balances an abundance of precision with subtle notes of playfulness.”
Instrument Sans is popular online, used in more than 30,900 websites, according to Google Fonts, while Instrument Serif is less common, used on just more than 7,700 websites. The White House has used Instrument Serif for some of the first social graphics posted to Trump’s POTUS account.
For now, the new White House site has just three pages for “News,” “Issues,” and “Administration.” Unlike under the Biden and Obama administrations, there is no Spanish-language version of the site.
The “Administration” page shows the rather unconventional headshots of Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. The photos were taken by Trump’s chief photographer, Daniel Torok, who said on X that he used an edge light, hair light, clamshell strip, and 4-inch soft light to achieve the dramatic look.
If Trump’s official headshot looks a bit like his mugshot, that’s because it’s reportedly exactly how he wanted it. After seeing other defendants in the Georgia election interference case depicted in unflattering, washed-out booking photos, Trump practiced different facial expressions until he found a scowl he liked and used it for his mugshot, an adviser told The Atlantic, which reported, “Trump loved the result. And when it came time to pose for photos for the official inaugural program, he re-created it.”
Job interviews to work in the Trump administration have reportedly included questions to test fealty to the president, including whether or not job seekers believe the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, according to The New York Times. If that’s the case, whitehouse dot gov might not get a job working in the White House. Trump’s bio states, “He remarkably won the Presidency in his first ever run for any political office. He won a second time despite several assassination attempts and the unprecedented weaponization of law fare against him,” like 2020 never happened.
There’s also a new White House icon on the site. Previous icons shown on websites for President Joe Biden and Trump before he left office after his first term were less detailed than the new Trump White House icon, which uses a full-color U.S. flag and details like paned windows, molding, and railing on the roof.
The White House website wasn’t the only one to be updated Monday. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ website was updated from a campaign site to a site for the new office of Kamala D. Harris. The site uses Denton, the same serif font Harris used during the campaign, along with the sans-serif Balto, another one of her campaign’s fonts.
In 2024, Trump campaigned almost exclusively in Gotham. Without a brand guide as layered as Harris’, his campaign brand couldn’t simply be reconfigured to go from election mode to governing, the typographic equivalent of someone without an inside voice. Neither did Trump’s White House bring back Merriweather, the font the site used in his first term that the Jan. 6 committee used against himduring its investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Instrument Serif and Instrument Sans are the fonts of a new administration, and already, they’ve been used to to write Trump’s flurry of day one executive orders, from withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization to pardoning more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in connection to the Capitol attack, including those who attacked police. These are now fonts of the state, backed by the power of the executive branch.
