OBEY the power of the poster

February 1, 2009

I have to thank a coworker for pointing me to this site, Obamicon.me. I’d seen these “Obama-ized” icons on people’s profile pics, but couldn’t figure out where they had been coming from. Actually, they probably should be called “Fairey-ed” icons after the poster designer, Shepard Fairey.

I had first heard of Fairey years ago when the sub-culture “OBEY” stickers were popular. I’m guilty of sticking a few of them myself. It’s funny to think about how his artwork has become ubiquitous – it’s truly taken on a life of it’s own. Much like I remember Fairey’s stickers of the past being subverted. There were so many parodies of “xxx has a posse” stickers.

The Obama poster had a different purpose, but the desire of the public to manipulate art for their own purposes remains the same. It’s “frogress” I suppose.