Mini-Stories: Volume 4

Trump’s Challenge Coin with Roman Mars

When the new presidential challenge coin came out, a lot of people began sending 99pi and Roman links to this Washington Post article, recalling our episode on challenge coins:

The new coin (shown below) is quite garish, featuring three iterations of Trump’s name and a bump-out on the bottom that defies coin shape conventions. It also replaces “E pluribus unum” — a Latin phrase that means “Out of many, one” — with “Make America Great Again.”

But one could make a case that the design of the coin reflects the style of this particular president, and thus that it is, in fact, well-designed … at least in the sense of having its form fit its intended function.

For more on this president (and American legal history) be sure to tune into What Donald Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, a podcast about constitutional law with Elizabeth Joh and Roman Mars.

  1. Kakurady

    “auditory icons” are also called “earcons” – from reading “icon” as “eye-con”, and then making the analogy that, what an icon is to the eye, is that which an auditory icon is to the ear.

  2. Sam

    I really want to find a dictionary now in chronological order. Cant find one online. Anyone else?

  3. Terry

    A great example of auditory icons is police radar detectors, Valentine brand in particular:
    http://www.valentine1.com
    They use different tones to signify the different frequency bands, and vary the beep frequency based on signal intensity. Coupled with visual direction icons, it’s a powerful system.

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