Polished Draft, Project 2 (Hope Poster)
The "Hope" poster is an image of Barack Obama made by artist Shepard Fairey in two thousand and eight. It took Fairey only one day to make the design. Fairey started by creating street posters of the image then it quickly grew into digital copies and propaganda (Fairey). The image became one of the most recognized symbols of Obama's campaign.
When you first look at the poster you will notice the image of Obama staring into the sky. Then next you will see the red, white, and blue colors used to represent the Flag. Further down in the poster you can see the word hope in a bold font. On top of the E in hope is the Obama/Biden logo standing for the democratic party. The way the poster was designed was to give a good human-like connection with the voters taking part in the election.
Fairey began screen printing posters soon after completing the design. Fairey used proceeds from selling the image to produce more of them. He made four thousand posters that were distributed at Obama rallies. He also put a printable digital version on his website. As Fairey explained in an October two thousand and eight interviews, the image quickly went viral, spreading spontaneously through social media (Ben Arnon).
The original image had the word "progress" But Fairey changed it to "hope". The reason for this is because the Obama campaign had concerns about the troublesome connotations of the original wording (Fairey). Fairey’s decision to create the poster came from Fairey's feeling that Obama's power and sincerity as a speaker would create a positive association with his likeness (Fairey).
Fairey went through google to find the photo of Obama. Fairey had said, "My historical inspiration was the well-known John F. Kennedy portrait where he is posed in a three-quarters view looking slightly upward and out into the distance”. Looking at the photo of J.F.K you can see the resemblance it has with the image of Obama. Both J.F.K and Obama are looking hopeful into the sky. When someone smiles and looks to the sky in a photo makes me feel that they are someone important in our society.
After Obama's campaign promoted the poster, different copies of the poster were made. In the other copies, the word hope was replaced with peace and change. All the money that was made from selling the posters was used to make more and other merchandise for the Obamas campaign. Fairley had made around three hundred thousand posters with less than two thousand posters sold and the rest given away or displayed.
The poster was made for the voters participating in the 2008/2012 election. The Hispanic and black communities were the main ones who took his side. Obama wanted to unite the people of America. Since the black and Hispanic communities were treated as an outcast, they saw Obama as a sign of hope.
Imitation is a form of flattery and if you go to google and search up hope poster, you will find a lot of different posters design the same. Since the poster grew up a lot of propaganda was created using the same color scheme. All the propaganda made the original poster even more known since everyone was posting the image.
Fun fact, even though the poster is famous not a lot of people know who the creator is. Just by looking at it, one would think that the Barack Obamas team made the poster even though that is not the case. All the attention is given to Obama and not Shepard Fairey the one who created the poster. Not a lot of credit is given to Shepard Fairey but what can u expect when the poster blew up and made a significant impact in the Obamas campion.
In 2008, I was six years old, but I remember come home from school and turning on the tv and seeing how the black community came together as one. Seeing how there was a chance a black man can be president gave the black community Hope. Obamas poster illustrates how he sees the future of America. He believed that we as people Black, white, Latino, gay, straight no matter who you are we will be treated equally and pledge allegiance to the same flag (President). Once Obama won the election, he made history by being the first black president in two hundred and thirty-one years.
In 2012 Obama ran again for the presidency and once again we saw the famous hope poster make an appearance. In this election, he talked about how we the people helped him do his job as president and that we motivated him to do his best for us. He then talks about how he believes that we can create a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. Obama said that he wants a generous America that is open to the dreams of an immigrant's daughter that studies in our school and pledges to our flag. I know for a fact that this touched a lot of people emotionally in the Hispanic community because I can relate to what he said. Obama had a unique way of appealing to people and gaining their trust and he used it to win his second term of presidency in 2012.
White House Press Office (WHPO) - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Photo portrait of John F. Kennedy, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy. Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.
Fairey, Shepard.” Barack Obama(hope) poster.”2008. Art Institute Chicago. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229396/barack-obama-hope-poster. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020.
President Obama Re-Election speech. 2012. PBS News Hour YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Mqy0v9Wow&t=840s Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.
Ben Arnon, “How the Obama "hope” poster reached a Tipping point and Became a Cultural Phenomenon: Interview with the Artist Shepard Fairey”. Huffington Post, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-the-obama-hope-poster_b_133874 Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.
Steven Heller, "Beyond Red, White and Blue", Campaign Stops Blog, The New York Times, https://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/shepard-fairey/, Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.
Comments
Post a Comment