“…like the biggest coup in history: the branding campaign with no product.”

1. Fairey attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where he received a BA in Illustration in 1992. During his sophomore year, in 1989, he began his infamous Andre the Giant Has a Posse campaign. Fairey, along with fellow designer, Ryan Lesser, then had stickers printed and started sticking them around Providence, Rhode Island. As others started to take an interest in his design, the image circulated around the Eastern United States as well as several other locations around the world. “…like the biggest coup in history: the branding campaign with no product.”

3. During the mid 1990’s, the campaign expanded to a website, where Fairey posted the Obey Giant logo, available for free download. He also posted instructions for printing stickers and cutting stencils as well as his technique for wheat-pasting posters. With the help of the internet, Obey Giant went from being a small street art campaign to interactive public art on an international scale. Moving into the realm of commercial art, Fairey, along with Dave Kinsey and Phillip DeWolff, founded the Los Angeles based BLK/MRKT Visual Communications in 1997. Fairey left BLK/MRKT in 2003 to start the design firm, Studio Number One. A year later, in 2004, Fairey, with the help of designer Roger Gastman, rounded out his growing commercial empire with the creation of Swindle Magazine, a bi-monthly arts and culture publication.

5. Another significant event occurred in 2004 when Fairey heard Barack Obama’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He was inspired by Obamaâ’s speech and, four years later, in January 2008, created the Obama Progress poster. Referencing a news photograph of Obama, he simplified and stylized the image, rendering it in red, beige, and pastel shades of blue. One side of the poster is predominately blue, while the other is mostly red, symbolizing a merging of the red and blue states. In a Washington Post interview, Fairey says he wanted the poster to be recognizable as my work, and to be appealing to a younger, apathetic audience, yet tame enough not to be seen as radical or offensive to the more mainstream political participants.

18. Since this was Fairey’sfirst time creating positive political art, he did not want to be a liability to the campaign, so he asked for their permission before spreading the image around. He was given the go-ahead and was subsequently asked to create an additional poster for the campaign. The second poster was done in the same style as the first, except that the Obey Giant logo was removed, and the word Progress was replaced with the word Hope. With 50,000 official posters printed, the campaign raised $350,000. With the help of the internet, the Hope poster became internationally recognized in a manner much greater than Fairey’soriginal Andre the Giant Has a Posse campaign. Fairey states, in an interview with the Washington Post, “I’ve seen [the image] on stencils, fliers, shirts, websites, places we had nothing to do with. This is exactly what I wanted to happen.

24. ShepardFairey Arrested In Boston • BOSTON – A street artist famous for his red, white and blue “Hope” posters of President Obama has been arrested on warrants accusing him of tagging property with graffiti, police said Saturday. • ShepardFairey was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art for a kickoff event for his first solo exhibition, called “Supply and Demand.” • Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Officer James Kenneally said. One of the locations was the railroad trestle by the landmark Boston University bridge over the Charles River, police said.