Political Decorating and Branding: A Historical Retrospective of the Oval Office Interiors from 1934 to 2010.

The Oval Office, the White House locus of the president's formal office, is one of the most well-known interiors in the world. It is part of a living museum, where rules and tradition often dictate the placement of furniture and objects, yet the décor changes as each president and spouse guide its decoration in their attempts to create or reinforce a particular political identity as a part of a strategy referred to as political branding. This paper will examine the Oval Office for over 76 years and will discuss the manner in which décor and politics have joined and created four patterns established in this research as branding strategies over time. This particular time period was chosen because it covers the inception of the Oval Office in its permanent location through the present. The methodology of this paper is qualitative. Each of the 13 presidential administrations' use of furniture, color, window treatments, rugs, and emblems is examined to reveal the four patterns identified in this research as branding strategies. These four branding strategies are classified as either symbolic, static, personal or expunged, and propose a new framework to view the décor of the 13 Oval Offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]