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Frank Shepard Fairey (* 15 February 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina) is a contemporary street artist, graphic designer and illustrator from the skateboard scene. He first became known for his “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign.

This campaign, developed in 1989, came about at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where Fairey was studying at the time. It evolved into the “Obey Giant” campaign, which became a worldwide effort through the collaboration and reproduction of the stickers.

In a manifesto Fairey wrote in 1990, he links his work to Martin Heidegger’s concept of phenomenology. His Obey campaign uses various quotes from John Carpenter’s film “They Live!”, including the “Obey” as well as the “This is Your God” quote. Other influences on the project included feminist conceptual artist Barbara Kruger and artist Robbie Conal.

After graduation, Shepard Fairey founded a small print shop in Providence, Rhode Island, called Alternate Graphics, which specialised in screen-printing T-shirts and stickers. While in Providence, Fairey met American filmmaker Helen Stickler in 1994, who also attended RISD and graduated with a degree in film. In the spring of 1995, Stickler produced a short film documentary about Fairey and his art called “André the Giant Has a Posse”. The film premiered at the 1995 New York Underground Film Festival. It was also shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 and at over 70 other film festivals and museums worldwide.

Shepard Fairey founded the design agency BLK/MRKT in 1997 together with Dave Kinsey and Phillip DeWollf, which specialised in guerrilla marketing and the development of “high-impact marketing” campaigns. Clients included Pepsi, Hasbro and Netscape. Fairey left BLK/MRKT in 2003 and founded his own agency “Studio Number One”. This agency works for clients such as Virgin, Adidas and Nike. Fairey founded the fashion label “OBEY clothing” in 2001.

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