New U.S. Passport Design: The’ Ugly Khaki Shorts’ of Passports?
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 02.01.08 | 12:48 PM ET
We’ve written before about the over-the-top patriotic design of the new U.S. passport. Reviews are still trickling in, and I like Karrie Jacobs’s take. “When I travel, I try to be the Complex American—a citizen of the fascinating, nuanced, multicultural, messy and basically decent place I know this country to be,” she remarked yesterday in a short essay on public radio’s Marketplace. “But I feel like this passport blows my cover. It’s like suddenly, against my will, I’m wearing ugly khaki shorts and talking way too loud.” That’s right, Karrie. You might as well be wearing these at every customs checkpoint.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Jen 02.01.08 | 4:44 PM ET
I don’t drive so mine is my standard photo ID. Thank goodness its a nice plain Canadian Blue one. I’d make fun of myself if I brought that thing to a bar.
John D 02.01.08 | 5:37 PM ET
I really like the look of my passport!
Don’t see any issues at all.
Karan R. 02.01.08 | 7:06 PM ET
So much for trying to not let everyone know you’re nationality. If you travel to sensitive countries you’re just asking for trouble with this over the top passport.
John M. Edwards 02.02.08 | 12:27 PM ET
Hi Jim:
I’ve grown accustomed to the face of the navy blue U.S. passport with gilt lettering, so this overdone redesign will take some getting used to.
But in general, if you have a formula that works, don’t mess with it! (One of the more famous marketing blunders:When Coke “improved” its formula over the snickers of rival Pepsi, substituting flat for fizzy, they soon went Classic.) As someone, like “Poor Richard” (Ben Franklin), who supported the gawky Turkey as national bird rather than the stately bald eagle, though, I’m willing to give the novelty of being overtly and loudly American a shot.
Still, I wouldn’t mind having one of those impressive elegant E.U. passports, which make all of their citizens look like important diplomats.
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. It’s the colorful collage of stamps inside that matter. Just like in the classic days of boat travel, when only the elite mattered and the going was good, no luxury cruiser could truly imagine themselves as worldly and sophisticated until their steamer trunk was pasted over with the colorful flaggy markings of various ports-of-call. Call it nostalgia, call it flat out stupidity, but we are nothing else but our collection of “souvenirs” (memories) and the countries we’ve purchased.
The new passport is obviously a boosteristic attempt to upgrade into the twenty-first century.
C A Jones 02.02.08 | 2:37 PM ET
I’m thinking of turning in my current one just to get the new one!
Normally, besides going in and out of customs, who ever sees your passport? I don’t even carry it with me most of the time.
JohnD 02.03.08 | 10:17 AM ET
I gotta say i really like the new look of my passport!!
http://www.JohnDennerRocks.com
http://www.youtube.com/YodaVanHalen
JAMES MARSHALL 02.03.08 | 11:14 AM ET
It’s ugly. Nuff said!
Mikaylah Roggasch 02.03.08 | 1:57 PM ET
I like my passport! I have traveled internationally with it and don’t feel unccomfratable at all showing it to the custom agents. I am proud to show off my passport.
Paul F. 02.03.08 | 1:58 PM ET
“It’s ugly. Nuff said!”
You’re tasteless. ‘Nuff said!
For all the gripers, If you want a nice plain boring one, move to Canada. I like it.
James M. Roe 08.13.08 | 2:35 PM ET
Just received my new passport—it is cartoonish and with the stocks of wheat, the flag and big bird it reminds me of USSR street propaganda. This is something one buys for a family trip to Disneyland and get the operator of every amusement ride to stamp it. Wasn’t there some “Golden Eagle” National Park pass one got stamped at every park. “Official” ha, ha, ha. “Elegant,” in the same sense a Superman Comic is “elegant.” Maybe this was the joke proof that was mistakenly substituted and then got approved. Isn’t that photo-shopped Totem Pole Canadian? We have cowboys but no Indians and I suspect the rest of the world thinks we sitll farm with oxen. Francis Scott Key—a bit weird. What were they smoking at the design meeting?
norfolk broads boating holidays 10.08.08 | 3:31 AM ET
This article is truly a good read for me! Informative and very interesting! I’m looking forward to see your future posts. Cheers !!
Caitlin 10.08.08 | 10:06 PM ET
How am I supposed to be a sensitive, responsive traveler with this thing? It’s garish and totally nationalistic. Do I have to shove it in everyone’s face that I’m American when I go through immigration? Just in case they didn’t realise that I’m American, my passport says it all, but in the most offensive, nationalistic way possible. I’m embarrassed to travel now. How can I hand an immigration official an image of Mt. Rushmore to stamp with the quote scrawled across the top of the page reading: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear and burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Wow. Truly. Wow. I’m going to learn how to say, “Sorry about my stupid American passport” in the language of every country I travel to now…