Ground Report: How to use creativity to irk the Left and beat them at their own games
Dear HillBuzz,
Thanks everyone for your support with the poster I created. Palinpatriot is a very brave person to do what he did, in San Francisco, and it really is like going into the belly of the beast.
Kevin asked me if I’d send in a Ground Report about using creativity and art to irk the left. So, here goes…
First of all, a little about myself. My background is in event production, design, and marketing. So, I’m all about selling the experience. In my professional career I often take historic themes and turn them into event designs. One of the ways I do it is to take authentic documents and turn them into menus. For instance, an original menu from an Alcatraz prison guards’ Christmas dance becomes a dessert menu. I think you get the idea.
So, I’m used to tweaking things and making familiar images not like they seem.
With the poster I designed for Palinpatriot, I wanted to take a well known iconic image of Harvey Milk and make it all about Sarah. The look is the same so it may pass unnoticed for a while, (which is a good thing because once it’s discovered it won’t last long), also, once it is noticed it will really flip some people out. Since it’s a cheerful, upbeat image, we aren’t being hateful or vicious.
Susan's Palin poster, based on famous Harvey Milk poster that San Franciscans are familiar with.
I believe that there is little that can be done to turn the true believers. However, in a city like SF there are a lot of people who are basically apolitical who just “go along to get along.” It’s those people, particularly the thinking ones with a sense of humor that we want to reach. At least that’s how I feel about it. There’s also the element of really annoying the true believers, which is a great way to get them to expose their hypocrisy.
My philosophy about this is that we need to keep things fun and upbeat. I don’t want to go down the “Hate Obama” road. It accomplishes nothing and only exposes us to being called hateful and vicious, with reason.
One of my major peeves about conservative art is that so much of it is unsophisticated and kind of hokey. There’s nothing wrong with the Walmart crowd and their enthusiasm for the red, white, and blue. But, in a lot of urban areas that kind of art is not taken seriously. We need to beat them at their own game by bringing more sophisticated, subtle, and less “in-your-face” patriotic art to the masses.
So, whatever we do art -wise should be fun and clever. If there are iconic images in your area, use them. Just twist them to suit your purposes. For many years the left has “owned” the art world, so let’s turn their “art” against them.
This is a perfect example. A popular image out here is the silhouette of Brian Wilson’s beard. If you don’t follow baseball, he is the SF Giant’s closer, with a beard that inspired the motto “Fear the Beard.” If we take that idea and twist it, we can get this:
Twisting a popular tee shirt to make it a Palin shirt
Same concept, different meaning.
Same with the famous Che Guevara poster. Change the background to pink, add Sarah, and a little pink star.
Changing the Che shirt seen on college campuses and Palinizing it with pink
These are just examples of the kinds of things you can do.
Remember, however, the big boogeyman in the world of art….copyrights! If you use someone else’s image and tweak it, (like the poster above), you can get away with it if it’s used for a “guerilla art attack.” Odds are, it won’t stay up long, and you can get away with it being “parody” as long as you don’t try to make any money off of it.
If you want to print T-shirts and sell them you must get written consent from the original artist to use their image for re-sale, and you will have to pay them for the rights. As a professional artist I have no problem with someone using one of my designs like Palinpatriot did. However, I wouldn’t like it if someone snatched my design and made money off of it. It’s theft, plain and simple, and as an artist I’d like to make sure that my image is used as I intended. If someone were to take one of my pro-Palin images and make it anti-Palin and also make a profit doing it….that would be adding insult to injury.
So, to you artists out there, remember to have fun. Keep whatever you create upbeat and positive, it will drive the angry left crazy.
For those of you who want to use artists’ images, be respectful. Don’t steal them for your own profit, and make sure you have their permission for whatever your “mission” is.
It’s time that conservative artists make a stand, and have fun doing it!
Susan
© 2011, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
Also Recommended:
- San Francisco Ground Report — pro-Palin posters replacing vile Leftist ones around town
- CALIFORNIA GROUND REPORT — Sarah Palin haters in San Francisco have no idea why they hate her
- New York Ground Report: Ground Zero Victory Mosque
- Kentucky Ground Report: David Kernell edition
- GROUND REPORT: Obamacare in California
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I will add that I work a little bit in the copyright infringement field and while I cannot give real legal advice, I’d be happy to research if an image has rights associated to any person or business and what sort of rights you may or may not have to purchase. The advice given in the post by Susan is totally accurate though. If it’s just guerrilla art that won’t be out there very long it’s not a huge risk. But if you put it on t-shirts, make money on it or it starts to get a lot of publicity and making the YouTube circuit, you may need to be careful.
YouTube is now the hotbed of copyright infringement and I still don’t think the legal world has gotten a handle on it all.
Susan, you are a genius.
I really think this is the secret to capturing some of the young crowd (I’m 29 for a little while longer, so I can consider myself one of them, right?).
Conservative doesn’t need to equal dorky!
I just love the red t-shirt with sarah on it, would love to buy one.
I love that shirt too! I wonder, could someone design a really cool shirt such as this (that wouldn’t mess with the copyright) and have it be sold thru SarahPAC?
Parodies are generally OK from a copyright standpoint. Where it gets dicey is if the image is copied from a copyrighted photograph. I *think* the red shirt would be OK. I agree, it’s fabulous!
Also, I’m glad you mentioned the legal aspect of things – I would hate for someone to be sued the way Shepard Fairey was.
Susan, you are brilliant!!!
Wow, I’m keeping the spam monster well fed today
Kevin, maybe a good action item would be to identify other iconographic images that the “trendy” left loves so we artists can repurpose them. For some reason I’m drawing a blank.
Starter list of Liberal Iconography, or “What Do You See A Lot On a College Campus?”
Communist style propaganda posters, especially the Raised Fist
Chairman Mao
Shepard Fairey HOPE (or similar)
Anarchy symbol
Che Guevara
The Phrase “Question Authority”
Anything that looks like it was spray painted as a stencil
Anything having to do with the New World Order
Any others I missed?
Great advice and thanks for the examples – it makes your direction so clear, Susan. I love the T shirt with the Sarah hair and glasses. It is UNMISTAKENLY her.
That t-shirt was my fav also…totally brilliant! I want one to start wearing it ASAP!
Me too, Me too!!!!!!!
Me three!
Susan:
I think we may have been separated at birth! I use very similar techniques, and have been a design professional for nearly 25 years now. I’d love to collaborate with you!
Susan…a bit confused about the copywrite info and the examples you gave. In the examples you didn’t use any of the original images, did you? You replaced each one with a totally new one…yet it is still copyright infringement if you keep the background?
Farey took a photo and colorized it…yet the original image is still there…so that is understandable.
Please tell…how are your examples copyright issues if you totally changed the figure?
Also, how can I meet other conservative (non leftist) artists?
There aren’t very many conservative creatives, but they are there!
We should make a Facebook group or something…
OMG! please. yes. asap.
In the case of the poster Palin patriot posted in SF, the background was taken directly from the original poster. So, technically, it could be a problem. Changing up someone else’s image is tricky. If you change it enough that it bears no real resemblence, then you’re probably safe. However, the best thing to do is create original art that mimics a style but doesn’t completely copy it. It’s a fine line, but you are always better off to do your own original work.
Let’s face it, as conservative artists we will probably be held to a higher standard so anything you can do to take the lawsuit weapon away is a good thing.
Obamacare ruled unconstitutional by Federal court in Florida.
Obama, Pelosi and Reid hardest hit.
Yes!
It ain’t over yet. It all rests on Anthony Kennedy who decides by coin-toss.
Not only that, but the ruling pretty much says,
“Scrap that whole piece of junk. It’s so totally un-Constitutional, no injunction is necessary for that piece of crap!”
Yes!!!
Drudge headlined the news on ObamaCare — “VOID” — Not much until Supreme Court!
I like the use of VOID plastered over Obama/Biden 2008 ads/bumper stickers
Using a large “VOID” stencil would be easy to add to any leftist propaganda out there
Hey folks! Just posted over at Lucianne:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Pro-Palin-Posters-Pop-Up-in-SF-114931049.html
WAY COOL!!!
Susan, how would it work to change the background on the Milk/Palin poster, to red, white, blue? Does that make it too much different from the original so that it’s a shock instead of an insidious, guerilla campaign, and thus make it ineffective?
No. The Palin poster works with its existing colors PRECISELY BECAUSE the black and white photo of Palin on the background of the Rising Sun is so arresting. Red White and Blue is patriotic, but we don’t diss our own patriotism just because we’re using a different, and more challenging, color scheme.
A perfect stab in the heart?
1.Go after Hollywood and all the liberals within. They’ll start crying like babies when their pockets are affected.
2. Start putting the liberal hollywood freaks names everywhere. They don’t want the masses knowing who they are.
3. I’ll start naming just a few.
Steven Spielberg
Madonna
Rosie Odonnell
Danny Glover
Chris Rock
Robert Redford
Barbara Streisand
George Clooney
Sean Penn
And the most powerful woman in Hollywood is Conservative – JODIE FOSTER!! YESSS
Is Jodi Foster a conservative? I didn’t know that. She lives in France doesn’t she? I believe that she is also a lesbian, not that that should make her a liberal but unfortunately it all too often does.
Anyway I hope your right about that, I like Fosters work.
I know a few lesbians who are and vote conservative. Look at the hillbuzz guys..they love Palin
These are all wonderful ideas! I just love all of your ideas!
Susan, I have a suggestion for an art piece. How about the faces of Schumer’s and Matthews’ faces on balloons with their idiot quotes below? (Three branches of government House, Senate & President & Panama Canal is in Egypt)
Love this idea. Harvey Milk was to the San Francisco establishment as Sarah Palin is to the Cocktail Party – the SF establishment thought Harvey Milk was coming in from “nowhere” and stealing their spotlight, wasn’t “sophisticated” enough, was unelectable, and should stop being so blunt about what he thought all the time.
Or, you could do something like this:
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=58307
Can’t help it. I laugh every single time I see that. Hehehe. Oh, and their idea about the invite to All Palin February is great too.
Susan’s Palin poster, based on famous Harvey Milk poster
Ah, I see. Thanks for providing me some knowledge. I found the image a bit eerie in the use of the “rising sun” background, but there is other history here and it fits.
And Sarah replacing Che? brilliant. I can hear lefty head popping all over the place once they see that one.
Please add ‘Social Justice” with Sarah’s pictures too – this will make their head explode. Sarah has already brilliantly appropriated another traditional DEM issue with to her alternate definition/view of environmentalism and sustainability – Alaska style!
As such, the number one way to irk liberals is to neutralize and take from their their current and biggest Pavlonian rallying cry – you know it as you hear it all the time from from Obama – and this week you are hearing it used by his BFF Mo ElBeradei – “Social Justice”
So why can’t we frame Sarah’s own Social Justice Platform – just check out this Catholic site’s list of “Social Justice” issues – think about them – we know Sarah has a position and already speaks to many of these – if only Sarah would begin to frame her views under the banner of “Social Justice” it won’t be long before the young impressionable who now are taught to mock her will start listening – Dems now use it as their top Pavlonian conditioned response mechanism- we need to do the same by redefining, repurposing, and reusing it for Sarah – the true leader for Social Justice
http://www.usccb.org/campus/teaching-social-justice-issues.shtml
Stupid is as stupid says.
Senator Chuck Shummer democrat lectured congress today stating that we must accept that we have three branchs of government, “the house, the senate and the president LOL! well I am confident that all the congressmen and senators with a R after their name know that the thrss branchs of government ar the legislative, judicial and executive. But Chuck Shummer also thinks it’s cool to call a hard working flight attendant a “bitch” for telling him to turn of his cell phone during take off.
Not only are liberals stupid, they have no class.
Democrats say and do stupid things constantly, like voting for Barak Obama.
We must make a loop of all these stupid quotes like Chris Mathews saying recently that the panama canal was in or MSNBC’s Mica Bresinsky’s choice of Abraham Lincoln as her favorite founding father while she and her daddy laughed at Sarah Palin for no being able to choose a favorite founder. Or Obama reading the words Navy Corps Man as Navy Corpse Man thre times in a speech in which he was to award a Navy Corp man who is very much alive, not a Corpse! Obama thought America liberated Auchwitz and his unlce was a part of it. Obama is a constitutional lawyer and most of the democrats is congress are lawyers yet they didn’t anticipate that their biggest badest piece of shit legislation would be found unconstitutional.
make a list folks and have fun rubbing it in the faces of classless trashy Palin haters. Obama voters sold out the greatest counrty in the world just to be cool. What a stupid sorry mess.
This is the Sarah version of the iconic Rosie the Riveter poster.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/11/sarahrosie.jpg
Propaganda has to be simple and invasive of someone else’s schtick to work well.
The reason the Palin poster works well is because it deliberately crosses over into the territory of gay iconography without really intending to do so. At the same time, and I don’t think Susan intended this, the poster definitely recalls Korda’s famous 1961 photograph of Che Guevara, only Palin is looking off into the distance in the other direction.
This poster definitely has “Che” like qualities, which is why I find it suitable for guerilla mass marketing and insurgent post-up.
Thanks section9. You get it! The whole point is to be subtle, and kind of impish. Images are so much more effective if they are familiar, and if we can take the left’s image lexicon and twist it, it has more power. It’s kind of like those silly songs you learned as a kid that change the lyrics of a popular song. Everytime I hear “Jingle Bells” I want to sing, “Santa smells, Easter’s on its’ way…” If we can get people to look at those classic images the way we want them to, we’ve made a major inroad into the culture.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, Liberal Social Justice at work.
Now there’s a T-Shirt.
http://michellemalkin.cachefly.net/michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ZZ53892315.jpg
HOPE For Me Too Obama
Hi, HillBuzzers!
This is my first post, but I’ve been lurking for a long time.
School was cancelled today, so I put my time to good use by creating a fabulous poster for my Black History Month bulletin board: Winning the Future is the banner, with great pics of Obama (feet on desk, playing golf, bowing, etc.). Can’t wait to get to school to put it up!
Thanks to all of you for your inspiration and good cheer.
–Fresh Nell
A+ Fresh..
Black History Month
formerly known as February begins.
I refer to it as Fake History Month.
I refuse to support a racist event
which essentially demeans
African Americans by subtly
implying that that are too bigoted
and dumb to relate to any historical
event which doesn’t involve people
with the right skin tone.
Please report back with reaction
to your poster.
Good luck, we’ll be looking
forward to hearing from you.