More Obama Fiasco

Hope as plagiarism

AP claims to own the photo from which the
graphic poster was designed, and wants
compensation.

Shepard Fairey, Obama's designer for the famous "HOPE" poster is facing copyright issues. Story here.

Fairey is also being scrutinized for plagiarism of various other graphic works that he has done. The graphic artist who is following this case says:

What initially disturbed me about the art of Shepard Fairey is that it displays none of the line, modeling and other idiosyncrasies that reveal an artist’s unique personal style. His imagery appears as though it’s xeroxed or run through some computer graphics program; that is to say, it is machine art that any second-rate art student could produce.

Contemporary design - whether graphic, textile or even web - is highly dependent on "copying" or using already existing images. I think this speaks of the dearth of drawing and illustration skills that would have been essential in the non-photography, non-xerox age.

This actually curtails the imagination of the designer, and even the precision (and aesthetic quality) of the work. Details that can be changed with a pencil and an eraser are ignored because they would take up too much time on the computer or the xerox machine.

I intuitively feel that this also determines the type of person who would design such a graphic work, one who might be more of a (hurried) ideologue than a careful artist. This is an idea I will work on.