Shepard Fairey's inauguration posters: We the People

[LearnedCoward]

@anon36155390

And is it just me, or does the HOPE shading seem a little… tired?

Not just you.

@enkidoodler

I like his stuff, but it reminds me of being in middle school and high school where we were taught ‘if you aren’t going to blend that try a paint by numbers approach’

In middle school art, one of our projects was to do a four-tone monochromatic self-portrait. This is very similar, except that one of the tones of the blue is actually red.

@nungesser

As a graphic designer, I have to grudgingly admire someone who’s established such a distinctive, marketable style that he can just run photos through a few filters, grab some vector elements from his library of borders and filigree, and send off a bill that’s probably more than I make in a month.

Sums it up for me as well. He didn’t do anything complex or even novel, but he did something that worked out very well for him. Maybe the effortless style behind HOPE is why it was such a popular image.