Whereas his iconic Obama "Hope" poster was created without the knowledge or consent of the Obama campaign in 2008, but was so alluring that the campaign couldn't help but embrace it, the reverse seems to be the case in regard to the design Fairey came up with for the Sanders campaign.
In the eight years since the Obama "Hope" poster rocketed Fairey to national stardom, he has criss-crossed the globe to oversee the wall-papering of large public murals while his crack staff back in L.A. creates increasingly identifiable, but ultimately generic Adobe Illustrator images that, quite frankly, lack any of the immediacy and appeal that made the Obama "Hope" image so strikingly undeniable.
Sadly, the Bernie image itself seems to have been designed by an intern with rudimentary Illustrator skills and a clipboard of stock images at the ready. The resulting design does little to convey the urgency for change and the promise of "a future to believe in" upon which Sanders' campaign is built.
Even so, the fact that Hillary Clinton's campaign spokesman Brian Fallon felt the need to publicly dismiss Fairey's latest political endeavor was as predictable as any of the other mud slung in the direction of Sanders and those who support him, saying:
Diss Obama by day, do poor man's imitation of 2008 campaign by night. https://t.co/jN14g4pMCc— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) February 18, 2016