The “H” sign has become a reason to mock the candidate

Apr 15, 2015 10:00 GMT  ·  By

When she decided to use the social media as a way to promote her 2016 presidential bid, Hillary Clinton probably had something else in mind.

Twitter did not exactly have the reaction she might have expected, as most people jumped to criticize her decision and mostly everything related with her campaign.

Shortly after she announced that she would run for president through the following tweet: “I'm running for president. Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion,” the hashtag #WhyImNotVotingforHillary started trending on Twitter.

How the logo became a source of mockery

But this was not all. People quickly started to pick on her campaign logo and her “H” sign soon turned into the butt of everyone’s jokes.

Some have argued that the logo - a large, blue letter H, with a horizontal red arrow pointing to the right - looks more like a road sign pointing to a nearby hospital, while others have compared it to the FedEx sign.

Even designers commented on the logo, trying to provide an explanation for the negative reaction it prompted. “People like curves, and this has no curves. It's a stark, corporate, hard-edged logo,” behavioral scientist Susan Weinschenk declared for Vox.

This might be one of the reasons why people dislike the logo, but the most common explanation is that people just don’t seem to approve of Clinton, therefore, they cannot really take in her icon either.

On top of that, there were further controversies surrounding the infamous logo. One of them was started by WikiLeaks. “Hillary Clinton has stolen our innovative WikiLeaks twitter logo design,” reads a post from the organization's official Twitter page.

However, Milton Glaser, a graphic designer declared for CNNMoney that this allegation was “nonsensical” and that everybody uses arrows. “The arrow is one of great clichés in communications, so they shouldn't be so possessive about it. It seems a bit neurotic.”

It was to be expected that her every move would be under scrutiny after the launch of her campaign online, and she was prone to have to deal with some bad publicity, even if it’s mainly directed towards her logo.