READ Movement

Imagine it’s 2005 and you’re riding through the streets of Tampa in an unmarked rental van, just you and Shepard Fairey. Your only task is to help one of the greatest street artists of all time plaster the city with posters in preparation for an upcoming exhibition exploring contemporary art and street culture. He asks if you want to post any of your art alongside his and when he sees your sticker design he likes it and encourages you to continue putting it up. 

When Shepard Fairey thinks it’s a good idea, you pay attention. 

That was the beginning of the READ Movement, a positive social messaging campaign designed to promote the love of education and literacy, one impression at a time. By using a model that Shepard Fairey perfected with his OBEY image, READ uses the streets to positively disrupt the everyday bombardment of capitalist messaging. Since that serendipitous day with Fairey, thousands of READ stickers and posters have been found the world over; from New York City to Greece to India and beyond. 

Although the READ symbol has evolved over time, its cornerstone, the blind-folded female bust with butterfly wings, has remained consistent. Each piece of the design is significant. The butterfly wings represent the transformation made possible through reading– the opportunity to expand one’s mind, understand new concepts, explore other realities, or to simply get lost in an imaginary world. The figure is female as a respectful nod to the artist’s mom, a strong single mother who encouraged Jay’s love for literature at a young age. Lastly, the bust is blind folded, symbolizing our culture’s collective lack of attention– lack of attention to one another, to written or visual communication, lack of concern for much of anything beyond the cell phones in our hands. The blinded woman serves to create a startling, thought provoking image when passed unexpectedly in the street. Over her eyes, the bold capital letters spelling READ speak for themselves. The design is iconically simple and yet perfectly complex.

In addition to stickers and posters, READ has been able to harness the power of positive messaging to create charitable campaigns designed to support local community initiatives like the Justice Studio, an in-house art program serving juvenile detention facilities in Tampa and Pinellas County. 

While READ has always been an individual passion project for Giroux, the messaging campaign now lives under the Greater Public Studio umbrella, allowing both GPS and READ to better maximize impact and resources. READ inspired products and apparel will be available through GPS’s e-commerce page. Just as in the past, a portion of every dollar spent on READ products will be donated to an organization that values learning, love, and equality. 

Today, the READ message is just as relevant, if not more, as it was in 2005. Read all the books– especially the banned ones.