Design of the times: Obama ‘Hope’ poster gets a life of its own
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 12:41 pm
- 1 Comment
While there are plenty of memorable images in this presidential campaign that are still jockeying to be the Most Significant, a design by artist Shepard Fairey has, quite literally, changed the face of presidential campaigns. His now-famous “Hope” and “Progress” images designed for Barack Obama helped bring art and design culture into campaign marketing. After all, in what other election has a candidate had a custom logo absent of his or her name, let alone one so ubiquitous?
Like Obama’s logo, which supporters can download to create their very own avatar, Fairey’s posters have taken on a life of their own, albeit a bit more organically. People are using the design to create all kinds
of political and sometimes intentionally illogical images and messages, from the Pope to Bob Hope to McCain as a Dope to Sarah Palin as Nope and, um, to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. (Oddly, there is no “Soap” yet.)
Blogger Rene Wanner has been collecting all of them, from the intriguing to the totally offensive and racist. They’re like little snapshots of both a utopian and dystopian America, one where an African-American can be a leader imparting hope and another where he can be the target of racism and fear. The site also shows how the image has taken a new pop-culture form, used as the template for all sorts of messages hard to decode.
1 Comment
Comment posted December 29, 2008 @ 1:28 am
It’s amazing how this style has caught on due to the popularity of the poster for Obama. I just thought I’d tell my Obama poster story…
I spend a couple of months working on a poster of Barack Obama.
Barack Obama Lifesaver poster
I was very happy to be supporting my candidate and thought that doing this poster would help. As I worked on it, the poster developed new meaning for me. I initially was drawn to the idea of associating Barack with the flag because of the nonsense in the media and many chat rooms, blogs and forums which cited that on a photo opportunity Barack did not have his hand on his heart when everyone else did. To me, this was no indication of a lack of respect. If Barack Obama didn’t love this country, he would not have put forth the tremendous effort to become its 44th president.
However, as I was about to begin painting, a friend suggested that I use lifesavers to represent the white and red stripes of the flag. It was brilliant. I immediately associated the lifesavers with the dedicated campaigners who were working tirelessly to help on the campaign. This gave me another idea. I had originally intended to put the poster on the http://www.MyBarackObama.com site to help with fundraising. The posters on the site were all sold out, so I thought I should add mine.
I didn’t.
I decided that I would honor the work of the campaigners by offering free posters to the very people who were doing the work. I sent out 4000 posters to very critical swing state campaign offices to be distributed to individuals who were working on the campaign. They were very much appreciated by all.
I am so proud that I played a small part in the election of Barack Obama. He is faced with a terrible situation regarding our economy and a war that was never meant to be. I know that he is not a perfect person. He may not even be a perfect president. However, I am convinced that he will try harder to make decisions from his own core values with the wisdom to understand and incorporate the values of others. That is more than we have seen in a long time.
Already, the media is stacking up stories that will bring his popularity and effectiveness into question. Once again, we must remind ourselves as Americans that we are susceptible to influence from the media and allow ourselves to make our own judgments and decisions about policy without the filters of the media distorting our opinions. Both sides of the media, conservative and liberal, have agendas. Until we are able to make a personal, popular vote on each issue that comes before our government, we must abide by this system that is still bipartisan and firmly rooted in a Washington D.C. that is rife with special interest ties on both sides of the isle.
Perhaps someday, we will be able to have a popular vote. A vote where each citizen is counted, each vote counts for one vote, and that total will determine the outcome of the issue. We have a society that is technologically sophisticated enough to accomplish the development and implementation of such a system. However, that would require dismantling a system that has guided our country through civil and world wars, a great depression and a host of changes which could crush a less resilient nation.
I believe in the individual voices of our nation. I believe in the individual voices of artists. At this point in history, the individual voices of this country have spoken up for Barack Obama. I support this decision and I support President-elect Obama.
The lifesavers in the Barack Obama Lifesaver poster represent the individual voices of America. We who support Barack Obama outnumber those who don’t. Our economy is in a very depressed state because of the Bush Administration. Regardless of what George W. Bush attempts to do to gloss over his horrible presidency, he can never bring back the lives of our soldiers or the Iraqi men, women and children who have died in this unjust war. President Bush cannot recover the lost wages, lost self-esteem and lost hope of the Americans he swore to listen to and protect from harm. His oath was not an oath to protect his own agenda, yet that is all it amounted to.
I am ready to help Barack Obama to be a better leader. I hope that you are too.
If you’d like to see my poster, visit DeeperArts.com. Barack Obama Lifesaver poster
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