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Street Scene Design Guide: Graffiti

By David Seliger - June 9, 2011

in Graphic Design

When you hear the word "graffiti" in the context of art and design, the names Banksy and Shepard Fairey probably come to mind right away. But only knowing those names is equivalent to only knowing the name Frank Gehry in the context of architecture! The modern street art scene is just as diverse and creative as the architecture scene. Here's a brief rundown on types of "graffiti" and some of my personal favorites.

Tagging/Walls

Daim

Saber

Tagging has bad connotations in most cities due to its associations with gangs and gang violence, but tagging is the basis of the street art scene. Many graffiti artists get their start tagging and some continue to push the boundaries of putting life-size typography on a wall.

Stencils

C215

Kenji Nakayama

Stenciling involves cutting out the negative image of a design from paper, cardboard, or even metal, then using spray paint to fill in the holes. Stencils can be as small as a business card or as large as a building. This is a great way to transition for many artists and also one of the most fun, as the image can be repeated multiple times.Wheatpasting

Ron English

Noir

Wheatpasting is all about using wheatpaste glue, a mixture of flour and glue, to permanently adhere posters to walls.

Stickers

Evoker

Goldenstash

Stickers are brilliant, little pieces of artwork commonly found on mail boxes, parking meters, and street signs. Easy to make in larger quantities and even easier to apply, stickers are a culture all of their own.

Street Art

Invader

Peter Gibson

Street Art comes in many forms, from sculptures left on a street corner to painted electrical boxes, and from air vent balloon animals to crosswalk art. This may be considered the purest intersection between graffiti and classical art.

The Paint

With the advancement of the street art movement has come advancement in materials as well. Krylon is no longer the paint of choice; instead, graffiti-specific brands like Ironlak and Belton are taking the graffiti world by storm.

Additionally, there are now dozens of spraypaint caps to choose from: thin, thick, special effects, and mixing caps.

Graffiti and street art can brighten up your day or challenge your thoughts about the current state of the world. The movement has always been at odds with authority, so the risk of removal gives graffiti a wonderful fleeting quality—here today, gone tomorrow. But a wall sand-blasted clean is just another new, blank canvas.

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Pgroot

12 years ago

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Clearly, the definition of graffiti depends on who you ask. Many self-proclaimed "street artists" would not want you calling what they did "graffiti" or the other way around. Coming from the graffiti side of things my view is graffiti is like hip-hop it's not just a style of art or a medium but a culture with it's own code of ethics, lifestyle and mythos. Although it's true the "general accepted definition" may be any image applied to a structure the people most invested in graffiti have a different definition and I think that that deserves to be respected or at least considered. Daim and Saber are graffiti writers but their work is pretty 90s. I would also suggest looking at Horfee, Retna, Sure/Faust, Utah&Ether,ESPO, Swampy,Ewokk and Nychos to get a better feel about the breadth of graffiti.
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dannygumballs

13 years ago

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The word Graffiti may be interpreted differently by different people, but the general accepted definition is any marking or image applied to a structure or building wall. Every one mentioned here is a graffiti artist, but not all their art is necessarily graffiti. Please do not confuse style, with substrate or media. Additionally there is no inherent connotation of good, bad, or otherwise to intent of the artist. My 2 year old son graffitis the shit out my walls of my house with the crayolas, but he does it cause he like to draw, and have people see it. That said, "Street art" is merely a style with no context to location or media. And like Ray said, it's out there, and it's everywhere, and if you know where to look, it's pretty fuckin awesome.

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timothyvandiesen

13 years ago

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I'm sorry to say but graffiti and street art are not the same. It goes about the action and with street art there isn't a lot of action. artist print their caracter and paste it on a wall within 10 seconds, while real graffiti artist spending lots of time finding out how to fuck the system.
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Brody

13 years ago

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Don't forget Boris Tellegen AKA Delta!

He's a street art legend who also happens to hold a degree in Industrial Design Engineering from TU Delft.
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Ray

13 years ago

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Semantics aside, Blu is my personal favorite: http://blublu.org/

For those of you who want more, there are plenty of other blogs dedicated to street art, but http://woostercollective.com/ and http://arrestedmotion.com/ are particularly good places to start.

Anyway, keep up the good work, Dave.

-Your friendly neighborhood editor.
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s_4_f

13 years ago

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Ben,
Fairey and Banksey both get charges put against them. What they are doing is illegal too. Fairey less so now, as museums sponsor murals and all that. If I where to show you pieces I've done you'd say street art, but law makers disagree with you on that, and the judges job is to interpret the laws.
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Dave Seliger

13 years ago

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@ Ben - True, not all of the images are necessarily "graffiti" in the dictionary sense of the word. At the same time, the words "street art" tend to connote that the art is legal, while "graffiti" tends to connote that the art is illegal. In most cases, both street art and graffiti are equally illegal!
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Ben

13 years ago

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none of these images are real graffiti... shepard fairly and bansky aren't graff writers they're street artists. don't mix the two, graff is letters and illegal, none of this shit is graffiti, lets call it what it is, street art.
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evan

13 years ago

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nice little breakdown. Really this is more the start of a coffee table book though. want more!!
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James

13 years ago

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I wasn't aware Frank Gehry built his career stealing other people's buildings and then suing people who he thinks are copying him. Oh, wait that's just Fairey.
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