Despite the rise of ebooks, the interest in cover design and the look of physical books is probably stronger than ever. The rate of books being published grows ever higher, and they all need covers, even if it's just a thumbnail for a Kindle edition on Amazon.
Cover designers the world over have access, via online art databases and stock libraries, to a vast array of images that can be used to decorate and, with any luck, sell books. Unfortunately, all those designers tend to have access to the same databases and libraries, which means you sometimes end up with books which feature photographs that look strangely familiar…
Who Wore It Better is an ongoing visual research project presenting associations and common practices in contemporary art. This platform was created to promote formal and conceptual dialogue over originality.
Most well known for his "Obey Giant" street posters, Shepard Fairey has carefully nurtured a reputation as a heroic guerilla street artist waging a one man campaign against the corporate powers-that-be. Infantile posturing aside, Fairey’s art is problematic for another, more troubling reason - that of plagiarism.