Frank Shepard Case Study

Frank Shepard Fairey was born on February 15, 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina. At the age of 14 Shepard attended Idlywild School of Music and Arts, in Idlywild, California, where he developed an interest in art and design. After completing school at Idlywild, Shepard attended Rhode Island School of Design in 1988. RISD is a prestigious institution that focuses on training aspiring professional artist. While attending RISD, Shepard landed a part time job working in a skateboarding shop. Shepard was interested in punk music, which created his interest in developing underground t-shirts designs and graffiti art.

One of Fairey’s, most famous designs was his newspaper ad design for professional wrestler Andre the Giant. Shepard came across an

Another recent case involving Shepard in which there is a warrant for his arrest due to charges based on tagging properties around the city. Shepard had been employed to create art for the city of Detroit. The problem came when Fairey attempted to do other work in the city without permission. Police investigated at least nine paintings with shepard’s signatures and several additional locations that were also tagged, resulting in 9,100 dollars in damages. According to Time Magazine, If Shepard is found or turns himself in to the police, he could be charged with two accounts of malicious destruction of property, five years in prison, and fines possibly more than 10,000 (Time

He introduced his movement to the art world of punk and confrontational styles of past artists such as Winston Smith, Barbara Kruger, Raymond Pettibon, and Robbie Conal. In an article called “The Progressive,” “Shepard described how he wanted to impact society with his designs by channeling his frustration and anger into a positive way, but still remaining critical, analytical, and willing to embrace what we have in common as people” (The Progressive). The majority of Shepards work were political. As a citizen of the United States, Shepard promoted his views about the politics through his work by illustrating his views to people in society. An example of this is the creation of the “Hope” poster of Obama. According to “The Progressive,” Fairey believes, Art challenges people to think about a different perspective and about what’s possible, giving them hope and optimism promoting action-hopes promotes action” (The Progressive). This shows how Shepard wanted to inspire the citizens of the United States to take a stand vote for