Clothing are the things that people wear to cover their bodies, typically made of fabrics or textiles or animal skins. Nowadays, clothing has different fresh, cool, nice logos and become more popular in our community. Each company creates and designs their own logos to identify their style in the market. A logo is the definition and presentation of a symbol or design for public recognition of a company or individual aid. We see many clothes from different companies and brands with their own logos such as Nike, Puma, Adidas, Obey and more. A famous mark of clothing is Obey and this research paper will be based on this prominent brand.
In the summer of 1989, Frank Shepard Fairey had a great idea that would innovate the future of clothing. He is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In some of his designs he included revolutionary and rebel figures such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Che Guevara, MAlcoln X, and Chinese soldiers, punk and rock music stars, Big Brother, Uncle Sam and the police. Also, he included peace, justice, equality, freedom, immigration reform, human rights, the Occupy movement and he designed the HOPE sticker for Barack Obama’s U.S. Presidential campaign in 2008. Shepard was born on February 15, 1970 and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His father is a doctor named Strait Fairey and his mother is a realtor named Charlotte. He attended Wando High School in MT. Pleasant, South Carolina, and transferred to high school Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, California, from which he graduated in 1988. After that he moved to Rhode island to attend the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and he earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, in 1992 from the same school of Design (RISD).
When Shepard Fairey was studying at the Rhode IslandSchool of Design (1989) he had a part-time job in a skateboarding shop and he was interested in the street art culture and graffiti movement. He created a silk-screened sticker in black and white color called “Andre the Giant Has a Posse,” which has over a million copies distributedaround the world. This sticker was inspired by an image found in a newspaper of the wrestler Andre Roussimoff, known as Andre The Giant and his height and weight, 7’4 and 520 pounds. Also, Fairey had an exhibit at New York’s holly Solomon Gallery about this sticker in a large size. After his exhibition that was organized by Paul Hitopoulos, who plans to bring more contemporary work, Fairey realised that he was very successful and that he caught people’s attention a lot, although that image had no meaning for them.
Some time later, in the same year Fairey made a campaign with this same image but he added the word “OBEY GIANT” or “OBEY” in red and white color. This campaign was successful and caused a lot of curiosity and questions about their relationship between the images and the word to the people who saw it because it was something innovative and not common in these times. People were not used to seeing advertisements with images and words togethers. In reality his work had no relationship or meaning but Shepard was related to the image of the wrestler as a symbol of courage, power and at the same time as frustration, anger and the word “OBEY” as obedience, expressing his idea as a sign of support to people who were abused. Although the word “OBEY” does not mean anything, it is just a word that he designed. This was a professional way to express his revolutionary ideas.
After a few years Fairey couldn’t use a permanent image on his campaign, artworks or designs as his logo. So, he decided to use only the word “OBEY” in white and red color as his logo or mark. Nowadays, we as customers can see this logo in different colors such as black and white, green and black, gray and black, green and white and more in different clothes like t-shirts, hoodies, caps, sweaters and more.
In 2001, after almost ten years since Fairey’s last museum show and independent street art, his line in skateboard-inspired clothing and international brand called OBEY was created.
Over time it became popular around the world and started to get stocked by some popular shops such as PacSun and Urban Outfitters. People of different ages liked this clothing style because it was a new and different style with nice, colorful and fun designs, especially the skaters were very happy because a clothing brand that is of their styles came out. From the beginning although this clothing line was not as popular as it is today, it has always hadinnovative seasonal trends and great collections such as pieces of leopard-print puffer jacket, laid-back graphic t-shirt in many colors, comfortable pants, cool caps and more. In this line clothing or company Fairey and his group of workers are only in charge of making the designs and logos of the clothes because Obey men’s is designed by Mike Ternosky which is a designer responsible for translating Shepard’s vision to Obey and Obey women’s is designed by Grace Lee which is the director of this area. Some Obey clothing is made in China and many of the items like jackets, jeans, hats and more are made in Asia because they are cheapest but the most of the clothes are made and printed in the U.S.
Nowadays, this clothing company has thousands and millions of really cool designs on their clothes around the world and continues to maintain the ideas of contemporary culture, rebellion, power and peace. Also, they use famous political activism, Hip Hop, Punk Rock and rebel figures to express a positive and peaceful concept or idea for the entire public or clients of different ages. As we already know as clients, in these times there are many competitions between companies that are innovating the market with very cool and fresh designs and Fairey with his clothing company keeps capturing the public’s attention with his new clothing collection every time he puts or takes out one on the market. Fairey has also made a name for himself in commercial branding designing different logos, advertising and propagandas for Mozill, Pepsi, Hasbro, Hennessy cognac, NASA and other companies.
Work cited:
Kasten Emmy, Obey Clothing’s Shepard Fairey Chronicles His Past And Future To Come, December 5, 2019, https://vegasmagazine.com/obey-clothings-shepard-fairey-chronicles-his-past-and-future-to-come
Teseena Feleg, Band of the week, September 13, 2018, https://vegasmagazine.com/obey-clothings-shepard-fairey-chronicles-his-past-and-future-to-come
Andre The Giant Has A Posse, http://peopleshistoryarchive.org/content/andre-giant-has-posse
OBEY Clothing, History, https://www.highsnobiety.com/tag/obey-clothing/The Giant.org, OBEY Giant, June15,2008, http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php/Obey_Giant
