'Hope' Obama presidential election campaign poster - Shepard Farey
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Obama 'Progress' (left) &'Change' poster (right) by Shepard Farey |
This poster illustration was made by Shepard Farey, owner of the clothing brand and marketing campaign OBEY. Shepard Farey emerged from the skateboarding scene after making a name for himself through his 'Andre has agiant posse' sticker campaign. His work involves appropiating images which he gained him recognition as an influential street artist. However, some say he is a plagarist who shows no appreciation or mention to the sources he appropiates images from. This image is a poster which was produced during the 2008 U.S presidential elections and was promoting Barack Obama's campaign for president. Shepard Fairey's stylized poster was given the title 'Barack Obama 'Hope' poster' and the theme is the presidential elections. The image is a potrait picture of former President, Barack Obama, who is depicted with a ambitious facial expression. The artist was clearly supporting the Brack Obama for President campaign and he is showing that Obama is demonstrating Hope. Posters are important specially when it comes to such campaigns as these so the scale of these posters had to be big in order to gain Obama recognition and attention. The artist used formal elements present in stencil art. he uses precise and clean lines to stylize the photo he used as reference for the poster. The colours consist of a solid red, beige, pastel and dark blue. These colours combined create an attention grabbing poster in a positive manner. This poster is likely to have been made using graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator. It seems that he used the pen tool to create different shapes and layered them to create a stencil like effect using the original photo as reference to his illustration of Obama. Another method that could be suggested he use is scanning the image onto Photoshop and using the Cutout filter. Personally, I dont like Shepard Fairey's work due to his lack of appreciation for his sources and creativity, but over all I feel that this poster served its purpose which shows as it became an iconic image during the presidental campaign. This poster also will go down in history due to its contribution on promoting and assisting Barack Obama on becoming 'the first black president'. When I saw this for the first time, I instantly recognised Barack Obama and the purpose of this poster. What intrigued me about this poster was the stylised stencil look and colours used which reminded me of propoganda art used back in times of war.
Thinking cap - Ork Posters
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| The Heart version of the Brain poster |
The company behind this is Ork Inc, who specialise in inked posters consisting of city neighbourhoods. The company are based in Chicago and have released posters on many other well recognised cities all of the U.S. The purpose of the posters are decorative and most likely brought by customers that have visited these cities or current residents of the city who are proud to live in those cities. The title given to this poster is 'Thinking Cap" which cleverly relates to its theme of the human brain. The poster maps out the different parts of the human brain and informs the reader where these parts are located in a creative way. The scale of the poster is 12.5" x 12.5". Ork posters are made using screen printing on 100% recycled paper, for this poster black ink was used which gives this poster a bold out look on its content. However, the poster company give you a choice of what colours you would want your poster to be coloured in. I think the artist chose to use screen printing to show how clean illustration can be done when it's hand made. The artist undoubtly had to research the atomony and structure of the brain to accurately make this poster. The artist has used precision with the lines to neatly show the contents of the brain and inform how the different parts of the brain are shaped inside the organ. The first word I thought when I saw this poster was bold. The blank ink used for this screen print looks solid. The way the artists has positioned and layed out the text is brilliant. The 'Thinking Cap' poster reminds me Oscar Wilson's work but the only difference is, each letter is scaled to size to keep within a shape, not actually being on the outlines of the shape. I really like this poster because ofthe way Ork organised the typography inside which for me ticks the originality box. What I also admire is that its done using screen printing which is something I've always wanted to do, and its done on 100% paper. I think the use ofrecycled paper contributes to the posters effeciency because I don't think many artists put their thinking caps on and consider a 'green' option to their work by recycling materials.
Andy Miller - Barcklay's Poster
Andy Miller is the illustrator behind this poster. " Andy J. Miller is a designer illustrator specializing in whimsical handcrafted illustration with a selective color palette, a cast of characters, and hand drawn typography. Andy's vision is to create tons of new and exciting artwork which evokes a strong feeling that there is much more to life, right below the surface." Andy Miller was commissioned through YCN by international brand and digital agency Start Creative to produce in-branch product and services category posters. Miller's illustrations were then later animated by Jamie Brown for use across Barclay's internal communications. There is no official title but I think 'Make plans, life happens' would be the title. The title relates to the theme of saving and investing money. The subject for the poster is the services the banks offer to potential customers. The artist is trying to persuade the viewer to consider Barclay's to handle their money. By looking at the poster, I think the artist made this using the pencil tool on Illustrator because he is used to doodling with one since was a child. His uses a selective colour palette which brings life to his handcrafted illustration and cast of characters to life. His approach to his illustration involves a cast of characters, a specific colour scheme and typography drawn by hand making this postors composition structured even though it may look random which doodles generally are. His doodled styled illustration consists of "whimisical" handcrafted lines, a warm and soft on the eyes colour composition and dynamic shapes that fill up the space in the centre. As mentioned before, a lot of symbolism was used such as the piggy bank which represents starting a saving account for your children. Aslo, you'll find a direction post which has two directions boards attatched to it, one is for saving and there other is for investment which I found out when I watched the video. The safe represents the trust the custmer has in the bank to keep their money secure. The hand writing a list and two heads representing the investments that could be planned and accomplished. A bird and its chicks have been added to this illustrations character cast to suggest that the saving or investment can be in the interest of family. And finally, there is a hand holding a puzzle peice which suggests the growth of the amount of money when you keep adding more to your savings account. Andy Millers work reminds me of that of Billie Jean, however, finding out more about Miller's deisgns enlighted me on his unique approach to his work. The first thing word that came to my head was childhood because it reminded me of my days in a classroom where I would spend some time doodling on my notebooks when I lost my concentration. I chose to analyse this illustrator and this particular poster because I admire the way he used a lot of symbolism to input his vision in his artwork.
