Shepard Fairey

A big part of electronic culture revolves around copyright issues. This subject has been brought up numerous times in class, this time we focused on a certain graphic designer named Shepard Fairey. He is most well known for his rendition of the Obama hope poster and his line of Obey graphics. Fist off I find his designs very attention-grabbing and professional. The issue with this artist is that he is constantly targeted for violating copyrights and stealing from artist around the world. It's true that he uses older images and symbols in his work, sometimes he blatantly takes the image, while sometimes he slightly modifies it. From what I have seen, many of his pieces are taken from considerable older images. Images that were used in different political/social movements in the past. He takes these iconic images and places them in his own work. Some are angry with this, which I can understand. I'm not the biggest fan, yet some of his images are great. I do feel however that Mr. Fairey is not trying to upset anyone. I believe he just enjoys seeing his designs all over the world and does not focus solely on profit to get rich, but profit to continue his lifestyle. I'm not sure if he has already, but I would like him to state exactly what he has taken from others. I feel if he is completely honest about it people would appreciate that even if he continues his practices. I also feel like many of his images are taken from very old sources who should be happy that their design has surfaced once again.