The New Passport: Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue - THE MOST PATRIOTIC PASSPORT EVER

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The New Passport: Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue - THE MOST PATRIOTIC PASSPORT EVER

April 29, 2007
The New Passport
Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
SAN FRANCISCO

WHEN I went to collect my newly minted American passport, I discovered that it came with a radically altered design that included sheaves of wheat, the rather large head of a bald eagle plus the flag wrapped around my picture. And that was just one page... When Americans do open their new passports, they�ll see a document strikingly different from the old booklet. By July, all applicants will get the new design, with the State Department expecting to issue a record 17 million passports this year, up from last year�s record of 12 million.

The new passport, in the works for about six years, incorporates the first complete redesign since 1993. Given new international standards for post-9/11 high-tech security features, which transform the document into an �E-passport,� the State Department decided it was time for something completely different. The new passport comes with its own name: �American Icon.� It�s hard to think of one that was left out.

The inside cover sports an engraving of the battle scene that inspired �The Star Spangled Banner.� A couple of lines of the anthem, starting with, �O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,� are scrawled in what the State Department says is Francis Scott Key�s own cursive. The short, 28-page version of the passport comes with 13 inspirational quotes, including six from United States presidents and one from a Mohawk Thanksgiving speech. The pages, done in a pink-grey-blue palate, are rife with portraits of Americana ranging from a clipper ship to Mount Rushmore to a long-horn cattle drive... �We thought it really, truly reflects the breadth of America as well as the history,� said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services. �We tried to be inclusive of all Americans.�... We think it is a beautiful document as well as the most secure,� Ms. Barrett said. �It�s a work of art.�

Professional designers shown the passport to critique mentioned art as well. �It is like being given a coloring book that your brother already colored in,� said Michael Bierut, of the design firm Pentagram in New York City. A passport, not unlike a scrapbook, gets its allure from gradually accruing exotic stamps, with the blank pages holding the promise of future adventure, he and other designers said. But they find that the new jumble of pictures detracts from that. �There is also something a little coercive about a functional object serving as a civics lesson, even a fairly low-grade civics lesson,� Mr. Bierut said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/weekinreview/29macfa.html