it's campaign time once again...

except on a smaller basis...school wide that is. So usually, i'm not going to lie- i don't give shit about school politics. I mean seriously..who does? Not to be a pessimist, but usually whoever is running is doing it just for popularity and also just for their resume. This election is a little different though. I guess its not the same in my mind because i have a friend running for president. I was approached by my friend Jamar the other day to help him and his running mate Samip make posters for their election. At first i was said i would just to do a friendly thing but after talking to them about their goals i actually because pretty interested. They want to "break the silence" as they say by forging a relationship between the students and staff..bridging the black and white area of the administration and the student body. They also want to get our school interacting with the surrounding institutions. After hearing them speak and hearing their passion to actually make a change i really wanted to hook them up with good signage. I felt that my commonplace would be a good place to discusst his because it made me think about what goes into to creating effective propaganda? So let's discuss signage. As a young visual artist i feel i definitely am effected by really interesting images and text. For example when Bush ran for president i remember really boring signs. Repping the red white and blue font, the signs were straight forward and really reallly boring. The reaction it got out of me was a big fat "he would". Obamas posters on the other hand were i think an example of smart intelligent signage. Let me just state i have no idea if the word signage is even a word but, whether it is or isn't i will continue to use it. Anyway the leading most popular Obama poster was created by the popular street artist Shepard Fairey. This sign was graphic, crisp and catchy. It appealed to the younger generation which was a really unique approach as far as his tactics in running his campaign. This style became so famous that now photo editing websites have generators that transform your photos into obama posters. Tieing that into jamars campaign, originally he wanted to go with an obama type poster. After plugging in his headshots we ultimately came to the decision that this would not be the most effective method of campigning. I say this becasue i feel that obama spoofs have gotten pretty old. There is so much baggage and judgeent and even prejudices that come along with him, (good and bad of course, dont get me wrong i am an Obama supporter) that i felt it was just to much of a risk to model jamar and samips posters after his. We decided to take an alternative approach and do something in their words "artsy". I suggested that painted text on their body rather then computer generated text might be more affective and unique. We decided to write their slogan on their arms and enlist other peoples hands to write out the information. When photographing them i tryed to capture their serious intentions while still fusing it their strong personalities. Working on a small tight time limit , i didn't get to go as elaborate and "artsy" as i wanted but they were very pleased with the outcome. I guess i just really wanted to take this opportunnity to record my experience being involved with some sort of political thing. Even though it was a small time thing, it gave me alot of insight into peoples professions that design things like campaign slogans for a living. If you want to see the fruits of my labor its posted all over campus..yeah..everywhere really. later for now.