Warp magazine 1994

You probably haven’t seen obey giant lately, since the former WWF champion died last year, but de does have a posse -and it’s growing. Over 350,000 Andre stickers are out there somewhere, splattered on your cit’s subway cars and school desks, on your favorite band amplifiers and drum kits, on your mom’s car bumper and the nighborhood postal box. It all proves you can’t keep a good man down, especially when he’s seven-feet, four-inches, and weights 520 pounds.
The vast Andre network can be traced to one quiet, unassuming graphic designer -Shepard Fairey, founder of Alternate Graphics (AG natch) in Providence RI, who’s turned a cottage-industry prank into a triving business. Fairey 24, started making the Andre stickers over five years ago, and has recently turned his subversive talents to skateboard manufacturing and filmmaking. He’ll soon finish Attention Deficiency Disorder. which he’s working on with the ex-pro skateboarder Blaze Blouin. Fairey loves the response the stickers receive. “It can be a negative or a positive reaction,” he says, “as long as it’s a reaction.”

– Mark Woodlief