After 14 years, could the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room get a typographic update? Also in this week’s issue:
A Republican billboard campaign is pressuring Republican lawmakers to resign for lying about the election
New Amy Sherald paintings are coming soon
What America’s earliest presidents would look like in 2021
Yours,
Why is the spacing weird in the White House briefing room sign?
Last week, @designershumor pointed out the signage in the White House briefing room behind press secretary Jen Psaki, and now it’s ruined forever. The kerning — or, the space between two characters — in “Washington” is out of wack.
This isn’t a new Biden administration problem. Just eight months ago, users on Reddit’s r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit were complaining about it, as well as about the spacing between the W and H in “White,” with an image of former President Donald Trump’s then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
I went through the C-SPAN archives and found that this current sign design has been used by every administration back to George W. Bush.
The sign first appeared in July 2007, after a renovation of the briefing room. This is what the old sign looked like, with former Bush press secretary Tony Snow:
For the first time in 14 years, the sign might get an update. As part of the ~online discourse~ about briefing room kerning over the weekend, White House creative director Carahna Magwood tweeted “I see it too.” 👀
“I’ll be there next week folks,” Magwood said, responding to former Biden campaign senior creative adviser Robyn Kanner. “In due time!” Amazing.
A Republican billboard campaign is pressuring Republican lawmakers to resign for lying about the election
A dozen Republicans who voted to object to President Joe Biden’s Electoral College vote count after the attack on the Capitol on January 6 are being called to resign as part of a $1 million national billboard campaign. The billboards were put up by the group Republican Accountability Project, or RAP, headed by former Trump administration officials Olivia Troye and Elizabeth Neumann. The billboards read, “You lied about the election. The Capitol was attacked. Resign.”
The billboards are up in nearly 100 locations, including both digital and traditional billboards, RAP chief of national communications and outreach Meaghan Leister told Yello in an email. The outdoor ad campaign began last Thursday and will run through the end of the month. The group said it selected Republicans for the campaign who “were the most irresponsible during the aftermath of the 2020 election.”
The billboards are just one part of a larger $50 million effort by RAP and other “Never Trump” groups working together to target Republicans who sided with Trump, and to defend Republicans who have voted or will vote to impeach or convict him, per Politico.
The lawmakers featured in the ads are Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Josh Hawley (Missouri), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Reps. Dan Bishop (North Carolina), Mo Brooks (Alabama), Madison Cawthorne (North Carolina), Matt Gaetz (Florida), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Devin Nunes (California), and Elise Stefanik (New York).
New Amy Sherald paintings are coming soon
Artist Amy Sherald is set to unveil five new paintings at her first West Coast solo exhibition, “The Great American Fact.” Sherald, who is best known for her portraits of former first lady Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, produced all five paintings for the exhibition last year. It opens next month at Hauser & Wirth’s Los Angeles gallery.
In the exhibition, Sherald explores “public Blackness” and “the idea that Black life and identity are not solely tethered to grappling publicly with social issues, and that resistance lies equally in a full interior life and an expansive vision of selfhood in the world,” according to the gallery.
Among the new paintings are the bright yellow A bucket full of treasures (Papa gave me sunshine to put in my pockets...) (above), and American Sublime, which, according to the gallery, evokes Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic, but with new twists, like a convertible and a woman in a Barbie shirt.
If you’re an Amy Sherald fan, it sounds like you’re going to like this exhibition. Hauser & Wirth said three of the works use “monumental scale” and “iconographic imagery to hint at unseen narratives.”
“The Great American Fact” opens March 20 and runs through June 6, and the gallery is open by appointment.
What America’s earliest presidents would look like in 2021
If you ever wondered what George Washington would look like as a 21st century president, comic book writer Magdalene Visaggio photoshopped it. On her phone.
Visaggio mashed-up old and new presidential portraits to create “modern-day” versions of what America’s first 18 presidents would look like in suits and ties, and with modern photography. Some of them are amazing and some of them are cursed. I love it.
Visaggio said she created the images on her phone using the Faceapp and Airbrush apps to edit the faces of old presidents from paintings and photos onto more recent photos, like she did with Washington and Biden. She said each took about 15-30 minutes to create.
You can view Visaggio’s entire thread here, including a few presidents she tried twice.
Visaggio’s Ulysses S. Grant is perfect, and her James Monroe is giving me freshman congressman from Massachusetts or Ohio or something vibes?
I’d like to think I’m pretty good at recognizing the presidents, but going through the thread made me realize just how much we identify presidents and other historical figures by their hair and the clothing of their era. Without the wigs, I couldn’t pick half of these guys out of a line up.