Banksy is a European graffiti artist that is known for his stencil art style that took off in the early 90's. For the longest time his identity was unknown and this aspect of him led to his fam. Now caught unmasked he continues to shock the art world with his stark and content driven graffiti style.
Tobias Frere-Jones is an American typeface designer who studied at Yale school of Art. Frere-Jones has developed hundreds of typefaces but amongst them all one sticks out, Gotham, a completely geometric sans-serif typeface made in 2000 built with 15 widths that are undoubtably legible. Work such as this continues to be used by thousands of designers to this day.
Shepard Fairey is an American graffiti artist who started off as a dj in the punk scene vandalizing his home town. Later on in his life Fairey moved to Europe to live with his cousin who happened to be a street artist named Space Invader. He was later introduced to Banksy who was very promenant in the European street art scene at the time. Fairey gained a lot of valuable skills at this time in his life such as stencil art which he would utilize throughout his career.
In 2008 Shepard was in America working on what seemed to be any other art project but became an iconic poster. Fairey developed the Obama campaign poster that kickstarts a movement for hope and change. The poster utilizes a photo of Obama taken from the associated press without permission and in turn was sued later on. Obama's picture was photoshoped in a way that derives directly from stencil art.
The typeface Fairey chose is perfect for this poster spelling out hope in Gotham Bold at the botttom and also includes a nicely built logo utilizing the circular 'o' for Obama. Altogether this poster contains several different elements that make it iconic for its time and Fairey alone should not get all the credit for this masterpiece. With the help of Banksy and his stencil art skills as well as Tobias Frere-Jone's Gotham typeface Fairey was able to create this amazing piece.
