Well that didn’t last long. The bubble of hope around Obama’s presidency is starting to deflate already with news that Associated Press is treatening legal action over Shepard Fairey’s omnipresent campaign poster. It’s no secret that the poster of President Barack Obama, above right, is based on the April 27, 2006 file photo of then-Senator Barack Obama by Associated Press photographer Manny Garcia at the National Press Club in Washington. However, even though Shepard Fairey has acknowledged that his poster is based on the AP photo, AP says it owns the copyright and wants not only credit, but financial compensation. The artwork was donated to the Obama campaign and even though it has appeared on everything from tshirts, posters, mugs and dildos, Fairey has never earned a cent.

For all you illustrators/artists who use uncredited photo’s for reference this could be an interesting case

Full story at Huffington Post.

On the day of Obama’s inauguration we here at Scamp Towers would like to mark the occasion by recognising the real reason for his historic win…Shepard Fairey.

Fairey is the man behind OBEYGIANT and the designer of the Obama Poster (above), he is a contemporary artist, graphic designer and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene and became known initially for his “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign.

Hail to the power of the poster.

IGI members Steve Simpson and David Rooney have some work in the recent ICAD 50by50, which took place over Design Week 2008 to mark the 50th anniversary of ICAD. Following on from Candy’s 50×50 series, each poster was produced in a limited edition of 50 prints and most are still available to purchase at €50 each.

Two of Ireland’s premier book illustrators have some new features on their websites. The incomparable PJ Lynch has an online retrospective exhibition featuring work from all of his major books and spanning a period of almost 25 years and all for sale. Oliver Jeffers is offering some wonderful limited edition prints from his award winning childrens books…Don’t you just love Christmas?

This Tuesday (16th Sept) sees the opening of a new show in VERSUS?, pitting the poster designs of Tiny Little Horse [IRL] against Lil’ Guy Al [USA]. The show features screen printed gigposters (mostly) for bands such as CSS, Feist, Battles, Ministry, Butthole Surfers, Warlords of Pez, Liars, Melvins, The Raconteurs, Modest Mouse, The Kills, The Dwarves, QOTSA, Mudhoney, Billy Bragg and many more.

Tiny Little Horse are a design collective based in Dublin made up of Illustrators BRENB, Gavin Beattie and Chris Judge.

Lil’ Guy Al are a group of designers based in the US and features the work of Lil Tuffy, Guy Burwell, Alan Hynes and Christian Sloan Hall. (more…)

With the Olympics fast approaching and after the headache (not to mention his heart attacks) mentioned in this previous post about the artist who designed the Beijing Olympics Mascots, lets take some time to enjoy the posters from the previous Olympic Games.

Go to this website to view them all.

Tiny Little Horse are delighted to welcome Chris Judge to our stable! He is a pretty great artist but more importantly he has some pretty incriminating photos of BRENB and Gav that he has used to blackmail us into letting him join.

Tiny Little Horse is a Design Collective based in Dublin. Primarily our work takes the form of gig posters both screen-printed and digital. But it has also found it’s way onto tshirts, badges, gallery walls, found objects, shoes, comics and other bits and bobs.

We are really looking forward to working with him over the next while…HOORAY! You can see more of our work here and follow our latest news on our blog.

The above image is adorning the billboards of Dublin at the moment. It’s for Opera Ireland’s production of The Marriage Of Figaro and as you can see features a very nice painted illustration. I can’t identify the artist and can’t find any reference online to the design team but I’m sure our eagle-eyed scamp readers or the artist will be able to supply the info soon.