Fact Check

Did Donald Trump's Campaign Unveil a Swastika-Like Logo?

Not quite the "best, most luxurious, and most expensive logo that any campaign could have."

Published Nov. 28, 2015

Claim:
Donald Trump's presidential campaign unveiled a new logo resembling a swastika.

On 27 November 2015, an image purportedly showing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's new campaign logo, one that drew criticism for being reminiscent of the swastika symbol of Germany's Nazi Party, began circulating via Twitter.

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However, the purported logo shown above, which can be seen to contain a swastika in the negative space between the four Ts, did not originate with Trump's campaign. It was a spoof based on Trump's personality and public statements created by the satirical web site Facthole:

Declaring it the "best, most luxurious, and most expensive logo that any campaign could have," Donald Trump proudly unveiled his new campaign logo today.

Facthole was a relatively new website in November 2015, and many readers who stumbled upon the above-displayed logo were probably unfamiliar with the site's humorous nature. Additionally, Facthole didn't include a readily available disclaimer identifying the site's content as satirical in nature.

Users could have determined that the above-displayed logo was fake, however, by crosschecking the image with Trump's official web site, examining some of the other articles on Facthole (e.g., Rick Santorum did not convert to Islam), or deducing that Trump's official logo would not be watermarked by an unrelated web site.

Later versions of the swastika-like Trump logos were also spoofs:

The gold "Trump Logo" pictured above was created by Mark Fox and Angie Wang of "Design Is Play" and was among the winners of Communication Art's 7th Annual Typography Contest:

Mark Fox/Angie Wang, designers Design is Play, design firm/client “Trump 24K Gold-Plated is an unauthorized presidential campaign poster for Donald Trump. Composed of four T monograms, the poster uses the visual tension between foreground and background to reveal the metaphoric negative spaces created by Trump’s rhetoric.” 18¾ × 22½, foil stamped and embossed by Oscar Printing, San Francisco. Typeface: Oblong.

Design Is Play posted an image of their unofficial Trump logo on Instagram:

In mid-2019, an image was circulated via social media supposedly showing the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, wearing a shirt bearing the swastika-lake logo:

However, this image was just a digitally altered version of a photograph that captured Ivanka's visit with Douglas County (Colorado) deputies in July 2019:

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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