Shepard Fairey: "Playing With Art & Commerce"

On November 11, 2009, Shepard Fairey was interviewed by Sarah Banet-Weiser who is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication at USC Anneberg and the department of American Studies and Ethnicity. During her introduction, she says that "his work challenges us to figure out it's meanings, refuses to sit still and disrupts boundaries between art, politics and consumer culture".


While he was attending the Rhode Island School of Design, in his freshman year, he worked at a skateboard shop named Watershed. There was a group of people that worked there that formed a team called Team Shed. Since Shepard Fairey was running the shop, he was team captain. They were making paper stencils to use for the designs on the shirts. A friend, while staying over with him one night, asked him how to make the stencils. His friend did not know what he wanted to use for the stencil, so he suggested an ad for wrestling that he just happened to see. He finished it because his friend did not want to. The whole thing was an inside joke that launched him into an early cult status with his Andre the Giant "OBEY" series.

When I watched Ironman 2 in the theater, I did not notice the piece of art that Robert Downy, Jr.'s character was taking down from the wall. After purchasing a copy of my own, my family and I were watching it and I noticed how similar it looked to Shepard Fairey's piece of art he made for Pres. Obama during his presidential campaign. I Googled "Ironman 2 Shepard Fairey" and found out that I was right. I also found out that it upset some people that he did that. I thought it was cool that the ones that made the Ironman 2 movie thought to ask him to make a poster in his style for the movie. I also thought it was cool that I had learned about Shepard Fairey and his graphic artwork in my graphic design class and was able to remember his name.

After checking out his website, I found out that he has created a lot of very detailed pieces and a wide variety of pieces. I also found out that what Sarah Banet-Weiser states in the video is true, "his art refuses to be categorized".

When Teenagers Speak, Corporate America Listens

The video, The Merchants of Cool, tells how corporate America are always in search of what is "cool". This is the largest generation of teenagers ever. They are the demographic that spends the most money by either influencing what their parents buy or by using the "guilt money" that have received from their parents. Parents give their teenagers money many times because they feel guilty for not spending more time with them. Also, many parents want to keep their teenagers happy and at home so they spend money on items like game systems and the games to go along with them as an incentive not to find entertainment somewhere else. Teenagers are growing up in "a world of marketing". Marketing is everywhere and most of it is geared towards them. Marketers go "cool hunting" to search for a certain kind of personality, someone that influences others and has the respect and admiration of their friends. Culture spies look for trendsetters, early adopters, forward thinkers, and/or leaders in their own groups to try to catch a trend before someone else does. They want to find a trend while it is still underground, because as soon as it is discovered and used it is not "cool" anymore.

Viacom is one of the "coolest" companies out there right now. One program they own is MTV. MTV is a cross promotional free-for-all machine that caters to the teenage demographic. The media watches kids and then sells them an image of themselves. The kids watch those images and aspire to be that "Mook" (a character portraying rude and crude behavior that is supposed to be typical of most teenage boys) or a "Midriff" (a teenage girl who is prematurely adult and that is very aware of her sexuality and how to use it to get what she wants) on TV. It is a media loop, because then the media watches them and so on. Some say that the kids of today are influenced by the media and others say that the media is a mirror image of society. This kind of reminds me of the famous question- "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?".

OBJECTIFIED

Objectified is a documentary about industrial design that was made by the same people that made Helvetica. Throughout this documentary, several industrial designers talk about why they design their objects the way that they did. Most people would not think much about the thought process that goes into designing something as simple as a potato peeler. As with other objects that we probably take for granted, they study people and their needs to make the object work better for them along with a design to make them appealing to the eye.

"Naoto Fukasawa is a lecturer in the product design department of the Musashino Art University and Tama Art University in Tokyo. Naoto Fukasawa's designs have won more than 50 design awards in Europe and America. His designs include wall mounted cd player / Muji, and Infobar / auKDDI. In his recent works, there are neon / auKDDI and twelve / Issey Miyake / Seiko. Other than Japanese projects, there is a range of projects with Italian, German and other European companies." He realized that there was not a need to create new forms. All that needed to be done was to take away from the product what was not needed and to keep only what was needed "and let the form and hierarchy be dictated by what materials that best allow them to do that and by how people connect with the product."

Naota Fukasawa









Jonathan Ive is Apple's Chief Designer. He believes that design is the search for form. He said that at Apple they like to design products that do not have obtrusive lights or buttons. On the new MacBook Pro laptop, the power button does not extend past the case and a thin power light on the front edge of the laptop only is noticeable when the lid is shut and it is in sleep mode. I personally have a brand new MacBook Pro laptop and the unibody design is very nice and sleek. My only concern is not being able to remove the battery. "'With technology, the function is much more abstract to users," Ive, then 32, told us. "So the product's meaning is almost entirely defined by the designer." Even then, it was clear that Apple's head of design knew what he was doing. Ive defined his overarching design principles as "simplicity, accessibility, honesty, and enjoyment.'" "'He likes to make perfect stuff," says Brunner, offering the first of three keys to Ive's success. That design perfection -- the first touch-screen smartphone, the dominant MP3 player, the first titanium laptop -- has become the benchmark by which companies in all industries judge themselves. "I've even had a plumbing company say, 'We want our showerhead to be our version of the iPod,' " says Brunner, now a partner at the design firm Ammunition. "Ive has this design ability combined with a craftsmanlike mentality.'"
I enjoyed watching this documentary. I never considered the role of the designer in making objects that we use on a daily basis. It seems to me that these designers are making sculptures instead of tools, appliances, gadgets or furniture. It's like they are making artwork for us to enjoy by not just looking at it, but by using it and possibly making our life better or easier.

HELVETICA

Helvetica is a documentary by Gary Hustwit. He tells the history of this typeface by having different font and graphic designers tell their feelings and opinions of Helvetica. Most designers believe that Helvetica is a modern, clean type that is good for anything. There are some graphic designers that pretty much only use this typeface. This font is believed to have the best figure-ground relationship that is properly executed. According to many of these designers, Helvetica says accessible, accountable, nonthreatening and transparent. It is well rounded with a perfect balance of push and pull. Some say that it is the typeface of capitalism and socialism. "There is a fine line between simple, clean, powerful and simple, clean, boring."

Helvetica, meaning Swiss typeface, was designed by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei in Munchenstein, Switzerland. Eduard Hoffmann wished to make a traditional font . Helvetica is seen all over the place in signs, logos and posters.
















"Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is information architect, type designer (FF Meta, FF MetaSerif, ITC Officina, FF Govan, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk and many corporate typefaces) and author of books and articles on type and typography. He was founder (1979) of MetaDesign, Germany's largest design firm with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing and way finding projects like Berlin Transit, Düsseldorf Airport and many others. In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts." Erik Spiekermann feels that this font is overused and does not make the product or company unique or stand out. He was the only one or one of the very few from the documentary that was not singing the praises of this well balanced typeface.