Designer of iconic Obama 'hope' image endorses Sanders

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Artist and activist Shepard Fairey, best known for the graphic of President Barack Obama he designed for the 2008 campaign, has endorsed Bernie Sanders, designing a T-shirt for the Vermont senator's campaign.

Sanders' campaign tweeted a video of Fairey on Wednesday evening saying he wanted to push "principles not personalities."

"I'm tired of portraits," he continued. "I want to make images about people of substance, about the issues they care about."

Sanders' campaign released a T-shirt, designed by Fairey, using the "feel the Bern" slogan and calling for a political revolution.

"Bernie needs help from people like you and me and I think he'll look out for the needs of people like you and me," Fairey says in the video. "Pick up a T-shirt and help support Bernie Sanders."

Fairey's red-and-blue stencil image of Obama emblazoned with the word "HOPE" became an immediately recognizable symbol of the 2008 presidential campaign. After Obama was elected, the original image was acquired by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Brian Fallon, spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, knocked the endorsement on Twitter, saying: "Diss Obama by day, do poor man's imitation of 2008 campaign by night."