Wayne's ADIP32 Research Blog: T-Shirt Desigers and Designers

SHEPARD FAIRY

Shepard fairy really got started in 2009, with his first dedicated art exibitionentitles 'Supply and demand' where he exhibited an astonishing 250 works. He has a wide variety of media, including screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages and works on wood, metal and canvas. Fairy is resposible for creating such famous works as 'Andre The Giant has a posse', Hope, and has produced art work for the following musicians: The Black Eyes Peas, The Smashing Pumpkins, Led Zeppelin and Anthrax.

Shepard fairy's designs have become largely iconic in the last 10 years, so much so that he has been involved with legal issues sorounding the illegal use of some of his imagery with in the work of other new designers. His most famous is arguably the one above. These days you can achieve a very similar effect but putting an image through a specific photoshop filter. Cutout, or posterise I believe they are. The hope poster is one of a series of of posters created by Shepard in support of president Barack Obamas campaign in 2008.

The Interesting thing about the brand that he designs most exclusively for is that they are what you could describe as a anti-brand, brand. They challenge conformity, commercialisation, capitalism and other forms of injustice.

Fairey is the founding partner of the design studio BLK/MRKT Inc from 1997-2003, which specialised in guerrilla marketing. Shepard initially started doing his artwork for his skater friends but after a great response he saw the potential to create a cultural phenomenon. His style is often replicated or 'ripped-off' and like Bansky he has become somewhat of a household name.

Ray Frenden

I’m a self-taught illustrator with a penchant for monsters and the macabre.

Drawing from a childhood weaned on old horror comics, pulp fiction, and sci-fi, my brush and ink work hearkens to an older era. My sensibilities for line and footing in current color and design trends helps make my work unique.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

There is not a great deal of information on this guy but I saw his designs and instantly loved them. He has a very strong but equally varied style. He has his designs created for a number of different mediums, namely T-Shirt design but also, skateboard decks, and magazines. I was particularly interested in his designs which make reference to pop culture, music, movies and cartoon characters. His style is more bold than mine with stronger lines but I can learn from his film related pieces. Also I noticed the composition is always just right.

These few designs caught my eye. They relate to my T-Shirt designs as they are drawn in a portraiture style and have some additional elements, on to of the characters themselves.

The designs are focused around football players, amongst some of them are Eric Cantona, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney.

The design come from a football garment website called TShirtsUnited.com. The players feature all play or have played fot the premiership team Manchester United at some stage.

I like the simplicity of the designs, the dripping red pain on each design, the characterisation of the individual players and the scratch techniques used to give the T-Shirts a 'worn-in' look.

One thing I picked up on, more of an observation than a critic; but the players al have unusually long necks.

This last design is one of my favourite players, Eric Cantona, who played under the number 7 for manchester United for several years.

miscellaneous Designs

The following designs are more recent one's I picked off Threadless.com. There are a combination of funny ones some of which relate to T.V show and film Characters. (Reservoir Dogs and 'SWAG') They are all quite original and offer some form of humour, The 'Mummy' one and Baseball novelty hand man' are particularly funny.