Monday, July 18, 2016

Political Art in a Fractious Election Year; New York Times, 7/17/16

Randy Kennedy, New York Times; Political Art in a Fractious Election Year:
"Recently, bumper stickers and T-shirts began showing up around the country with a logo not for Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump but for a long-shot campaign: “Giant Meteor 2016: Just End It Already.”
The graphic, by Preston Whited, a production planner at a kayak-paddle company north of Seattle, was a lark that grew out of a Facebook chat among Mr. Whited and his friends. “We have a pretty dark sense of humor,” he said in a phone interview. “We came up with it, and I just took a Bernie ad and redid it on Excel and put it out there.” He added that, besides having no real graphic art experience, “I really don’t have any political faith in anything.”
A few weeks after he put the logo on Facebook, enterprising souls elsewhere on the web picked it up and began selling it on bumper stickers, shirts and hats. “Which is cool with me,” Mr. Whited, 30, said. “If I’d tried to copyright it and claim it, it never would have had the exposure it’s had. Now I see it all over. And I can go buy it and put it on my car.”"

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