Categories: Book Rapper

Shepard Fairey: Poster Child of the Gift Culture

Shepard Fairey: Poster Child of the Gift Culture

Derived from…
Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable
Previously
Your Art: From Mechanical to Digital

RAP6 : Your Gifts
PROFIT : The way we interact with each other is changing. Central to the capitalist system is giving to get. In contrast, the internet is emerging as a gift culture where giving freely is normal. And, this is the intent behind sharing your art. The Gift Culture

When Shepard Fairey created the Obama Hope poster he set out to make some money and support his political beliefs.
From his initial print run, he sold 350 copies and gave away another 350.
By October 2009, he’d printed 300,000 posters and sold only 2000 of them.
The rest were given away.
(Source: Wikipedia)

To give away 99% of your product doesn’t sound like good business practice.
Think of all the money he left on the printing table.
Yet, from that one poster, Fairey’s career is now firmly established.
His poster became the icon of the Obama campaign, was acquired by the Smithsonian for the National Portrait Gallery and he now has an international reputation.

He’s also become the poster-child (sic) of the gift culture built on generosity.


Geoff McDonald

Share
Published by
Geoff McDonald

Recent Posts

What if Your Experience is Outdated With Mark Molony

You've spent years building your experience. But what if some of it is quietly becoming less…

3 days ago

On Experience – Why This Conversation Exists

For most of my career, I’ve been wrestling with the same question: How do you…

1 week ago

When Experience Works Against You with Mark Molony

When Mark Molony walked into his first day as a social worker, he thought his…

2 weeks ago

Why Talking About Your Expertise Isn’t Enough

When you’ve spent years building experience, and you get to the point where working harder…

3 weeks ago

Experience and the Space Before Reaction with Mark Molony

In this On Experience conversation, I speak with mindfulness teacher Mark Molony about experience, judgement,…

3 weeks ago

Why Working Harder Isn’t Working

If you’ve spent years building experience, you may have been in this situation. You're putting…

1 month ago