President Donald Trump’s renovation plans for the White House seem to include some very tacky signage.
As Trump prepared to embark to Miami to speak at the America Business Forum on Wednesday, White House press photographers in the Rose Garden noticed a new addition to the exterior of the Oval Office — a gilded script sign at the entrance indicating that, yes, you have indeed reached the Oval Office:
Classy, in a Cheesecake Factory sort of way, as one social media user pointed out. Many online made jabs about the paper signs, which seems to be a temporary mockup for a more permanent fixture.
“This looks like a trick Daffy Duck would put up to get Bugs Bunny into ‘the oval office,’” menswear writer Derek Guy wrote on Bluesky.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ― now a pro of mocking Trump online ― took a swipe, too.
Instead of saying “The Oval Office,” Newsom’s version looks more like a corny “LIVE LAUGH LOVE” sign you’d find at a craft store: “Live Laugh Lose,” it says, a reference to the Republican Party losing “bigly” in this week’s elections.
Graphic designers we spoke to had plenty of thoughts, too.
“It’s giving ‘I just learnt how to apply a gradient effect to some cursive font I found for free on Canva,’” said Callum McHugh, a designer and digital educator.
“After spending all week being totally in love with Zohran Mamdani’s font choice and colors, this really does feel like the ultimate eye sore,” McHugh said.
The sign looks more like something you’d find in a Florida resort lobby than the Oval Office, but “that’s exactly why it’s so Trump,” said graphic designer Anton Burmistrov.
The font is indeed similar to one used on the grounds of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida ― the president’s self-described “Southern White House.” Both use a bolder variation of Shelley Script Pro Regular, Burmistrov said.
“My guess is it’s not about tasteful aesthetics at all — it’s about self-branding,” the graphic designer said.
“Trump has always treated every space like part of his empire, so labeling the Oval Office feels like him marking territory — a kind of ‘this is mine now,’ gesture,” he said. “It’s funny because the room doesn’t need a label. Everyone knows what it is.”
Typography consultant Oliver Schöndorfer had a good laugh when he saw the sign.
“It’s a gilded script font printed on office paper — the cheapest way to try to signal something as ‘noble,’” he told HuffPost.
Doing everything up in gold is the Trump way ― look at his gaudy interior redesign of the Oval Office ― because he sees it as a shortcut to luxury.
“To me, it feels complicated and oddly insecure — like a cheap chocolate brand using a shiny script font to make up for its quality,” Schöndorfer said. “Or a budget hotel conference room trying to look grand. It’s overcompensating.”
The new signage feels like something you’d see on a mug at Home Goods or on someone’s 2012 Wedding Pinterest board, said Claire Bailey, a graphic designer in Southern California.
“It also kinda reminds me of a paper sign I’d have as a kid taped to my bedroom door saying ‘Claire’s Room,’ but the only people that saw it were my parents,” she said. “Like duh they know it’s my room. But I just wanted a cute little sign for it.”
“Performative luxury” is how New York City-based designer Anjela Freyja summed it up.
“Between the ballroom, the Home Depot gold-spray-painted moldings, and now this sign, it appears they are trying to transform the White House into a wedding venue. And as much as I love a wedding, it’s not an aesthetic you want from your government,” she said.
Hosting weddings may indeed be on the president’s mind; he’s currently in the process of destroying the entire East Wing to make way for a massive new ballroom, as Freyja alluded to.
Ultimately, good design, like good leadership, doesn’t need to shout to be seen, the designer said: “As the saying goes, money talks, wealth whispers.”
Paul Shaw, a design historian and type designer, jokingly wondered if new signs and directions would pop up on the White House property.
“What about an historical plaque commemorating the demise of the Rose Garden or the East Wing?” he said. “And maybe signs honoring political donors like one that says, ‘The Elon ‘Chainsaw’ Musk DOGE Ready Room.”
Still, Shaw thinks we should consider ourselves lucky.
“I’m surprised that he hasn’t rebranded The White House as he has done his other properties ― The TRUMP White House or maybe, as a nod to Marriott, The White House by Trump,” he said. “I am waiting for him to spray paint the entire building gold.”