Why the New York Times only used text for its editorial about a second Trump term
Why the New York Times only used text for its editorial about a second Trump term
Plus: The Harris campaign loves running green ads, but don’t call them brat
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at the NYT Sunday Opinion section’s decision to go all text for its big editorial and the coded design of the Harris campaign’s green ads.
Scroll to the end to see: how many fonts Green Party candidate Jill Stein is using in her campaign logo 🍃
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Why the New York Times only used text for its editorial about a second Trump term
We might live in a world defined by images, but for its Sunday editorial about what a second term might look like under former President Donald Trump, the New York Times editorial board showed how powerful simple text can be.
“Donald Trump says he will prosecute his enemies, order mass deportations, use soldiers against citizens, abandon allies, play politics with disasters,” the Times Sunday Opinion page read in big letters. “Believe him.”
The stark all-caps message was set in the paper’s custom font, NYT Cheltenham Condensed Display. “Donald Trump says he will” and “Believe him” are in black, and the list of things Trump says he’ll do if he returns to office are in grey, giving the wall of stacked text an easy visual hierarchy.
The wall of text lets Trump’s message speak for itself: there are no commas, which makes it more overwhelming to read. The only punctuation is a period at the end of “Believe him,” underscoring the editorial’s argument.
Times Opinion design director Frank Augugliaro tells me they chose to use type instead of an illustration or photography because they “wanted to portray this headline construct in the most direct and impactful way possible.”
“We often look for illustration and photography to convey a powerful mood, feeling or idea but here we were more interested in immediacy,” he says. The lack of commas was more aesthetically pleasing and it emphasized immediacy, he says, adding, “we did not want the reader to hesitate.”
The single page served as an impactful introduction to a longer editorial in which the Times’ editorial board made its case. “Donald Trump has described at length the dangerous and disturbing actions he says he will take if he wins the presidency,” the editorial reads. “His rallies offer a steady stream of such promises and threats—things like prosecuting political opponents and using the military against U.S. citizens. These statements are so outrageous and outlandish, so openly in conflict with the norms and values of American democracy that many find them hard to regard as anything but empty bluster. We have two words for American voters: Believe him. The record shows that Mr. Trump often pursues his stated goals, regardless of how plainly they lack legal or moral grounding.”
The Times editorial was published following a decision by the Washington Post to not publish its own editorial board’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s the Post’s first time skipping endorsing a presidential candidate since 1988, and the decision was reportedly made by Post owner Jeff Bezos. It’s led to staff members quitting and calls to cancel subscriptions. Former Post executive editor Marty Baron, who retired in 2021, called the decision “cowardice.”
As the Times notes in its own editorial, endorsements are written by publishers’ opinion section, separate from the newsroom, but some believe news outlets should get out of the endorsement game entirely, and many have. The situation at the Post is a matter of timing, Baron told CNN, and would be different had the paper made a decision to not make an endorsement years ago. But to “declare a moment of high principle only 11 days before the election is highly suspect,” Baron said.
Print newspaper designers don’t have the glossy paper or longer lead times that magazine designers have in laying out their pages, but in recent years, major newspapers have found creative ways to visually convey stories, like the Times listing the names of the nearly 100,000 Americans who at that time had died from COVID-19 in 2020, and a two-page follow-up that showed dots on a map to mark 1 million deaths from COVID-19 two years later. To draw attention earlier this year to Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was held in Russia until his release in August, the Journal left a blank space on its A1 on the anniversary of his detainment. “His story should be here,” the headline read.
The simple text of the Times‘s editorial page speaks clearly at a time when the editorial board at another leading national newspaper cannot, and it sums up the editorial board’s 2,808 word-editorial in just 23 words. Here’s what Trump says he’ll do: Believe him.
The Harris campaign loves running green ads, but don’t call them brat
We’ve entered the get-out-the vote concert phase of the presidential campaign.
The Harris campaign set off speculation it might have booked Charli XCX to perform earlier this month after it sent texts and ran ads on Meta platforms promoting tickets to a GOTV concert with a “surprise musical guest.” The accompanying green graphic in the ad seemed more than a little inspired by the art for Charli’s breakthrough album Brat.
“There are two things I love: music and voting,” Harris said in the ad. “That is why we are bringing both together as we near the end of the election, and I want you to be there.”
The promotion is open until Tuesday, and the Harris campaign said the concert will be held in the final week of the election. The campaign just so happens to have a GOTV concert rally planned for Wednesday in Madison, Wisc. Confirmed artists including Gracie Abrams, Mumford & Sons, Remi Wolf, and Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner from the National, but the campaign has yet to announce whether or not 365 Party Girl herself will be there.
Maybe she will, or perhaps like a Swiftie looking for hints for Reputation T.V.’s release date that were never there, the Khive read too much into a supposed clue.
The Harris campaign has ran nearly two dozen pieces of other creative on Meta platforms that use green, and often as a gradient. They’re not an exact match for Charli’s album art, which is hex code #8ace00, and among a sea of other gradient ads the Harris campaign is running, it just seems like one out of several color combinations they’re using.
A review of the Harris campaign’s digital ads also finds more recent ads about the concert promotion that started running Sunday are black, white, purple, or designed to look like a blue iMessage text from Harris. No brat green in sight.
Whether or not Charli shows up in Madison or elsewhere in the next week, the Harris campaign’s green ads are coded design that work whether or not the viewer associates the color with the pop star’s support for Harris. Without that context, it’s still a loud color that demands your attention when scrolling. With that context, it takes on a winking, secondary meaning. Kamala IS brat.
Have you seen this?
No American flags: Meet the designers trying to get third-party candidates elected. The understaffed designers for the third-party candidates wrestle with the American flag while courting your vote. [Fast Company]
Trump campaign ad claiming America has “gone to hell” under Biden features images from Trump’s term. A two-minute ad aired by the Trump campaign during Sunday’s NFL Philadelphia Eagles game, depicting the United States “gone to hell” under the Biden administration, is being mocked for using an image of protests shot during his own presidency. [Mediaite]
Harris’ campaign launches new ad seizing on Trump ally’s racist comments about Puerto Ricans. The paid media blitz follows derogatory remarks from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who made crude jokes about Latinos and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during the pre-program at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. [NBC News]
Elon Musk’s America PAC uses crude, sexist attack against Harris in new ad. America PAC shared a video calling Kamala Harris “the c-word” on X. The ad flashes an image of a cat with a meow sound, an innuendo for the swear word, before the voiceover reveals that the “c-word” stands for “communist.” [Politico]
History of political design
“Roosevelt, President” banner (1932). This art deco-style poster for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first presidential run was produced by the Sweeny Lithograph Company in Belleville, N.J., according to Jeff Bridgman, an antiques dealer. Another banner made by the company used the same circular element with four stars and a different portrait of FDR that said “A Gallant Leader.”
A portion of this newsletter was first published in Fast Company.
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