One of the interesting things – phenomena, perhaps – of the US presidential election campaign during 2008 was how many people remade themselves to look like Barack Obama.

By that, I mean the images people use to portray themselves online. Such images are typically known as avatars.

The iconic image you see here, created by Los Angeles-based street artist Shepard Fairey, typified the aspirations of many people, not only in the United States.

It’s also the image style that spawned thousands of similar-looking images that you saw plastered all over people’s Twitter profiles last November.

How do you make one for yourself? One way is to use the free service of Obamaicon.me, “a bit of post election fun” (it says on the site), from Paste Magazine.

And it is fun – I created these Obama-style images with my webcam and the styling tools on the site:

Haven’t yet got around to re-doing my Twitter avatar, though.

Give it a shot!

(Via Jamie Coomber)