Good graffiti?

Manifesting creative visions into material objects and spaces is one of the most prominent developments in contemporary design today. Graphics morph into spatial sculptures, the intangible is made visual through handmade craftsmanship, physical experiences, visual environments and staged spatial installations such as art installations, interiors and architecture as well as urban interventions.

Jan Vormann, Dispatchwork, is one of the proponents of this innovation of graphic design. His work, above, in Tel Aviv, is a terrific example of this movement, which some call "high touch visuals"---we're calling it "tangible graphics."

Banksy ALERT!

"Sweep" Banksy

Time Magazine offers a sweet little slideshow of Bansy works in conjunction with this article about a hilarious encounter between the pseudonymous Banksy and the Council of Westminster in London.

We promise not to post about Banksy again until 2009. But, we do love the way he plays with architecture. Also, his work stirs up community and forces it to engage in a dialogue. Very healthy. No? OK. No more Banksy before 2009.

Banksy's Pet Store

Famous British graffiti artist Banksy's first ever New York exhibition closes October 31. Get there if you can. The Big Apple for Halloween, think about it. Banksy's art installation, "The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill," will go down in art history. You will want to have BEEN there. Asked "Why a pet shop?" Banksy replied, "New Yorkers do not like art, they like pets. So I made a pet store."

Banksy's exhibit, a departure from his politically infused graffiti, features animatronic figures of familiar food, such as chicken. He puts the figures into weird situations that do not defy imagination, but, rather, boggle the mind. Banksy is attempting to explore our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, moving the viewer to question his or her conception of food and their relationship to it. A vegetarian will be the first to get it.

For those who won't make it to New York, here is the website for the exhibit. It is loaded with videos. Warning: Do NOT look at the sausage video. We're just sayin'. Here, also, is a good slide show provided by the BBC of images taken inside the fake pet shop.

The Banksy “Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill” is open daily from now until Halloween, 10am until midnight! Midnight! Its location is 87th west and 7th. Not only is the exhibit free, but you’re allowed to take pictures/videos, too!

Graffiti 101 | Guerrilla Design

Understanding the mystery and language of graffiti, from I Love Typography:

The language of graffiti culture, like that of hip-hop culture, with which it is closely allied, is deliberately cryptic. Graffiti is meant to be readable by graffiti artists and enthusiasts, but illegible to the general public. A writer refers to a graffiti artist. A crew is a loosely organized group of writers, who often write the initials of their crew members along with their own name.

A tag is the most basic form of graffiti, a graffiti writer’s personal signature or logo, drawn in one color. The tag might include a character, which refers not to a letterform, but to an iconic cartoon figure. Tagging is the act of writing the tag with a marker or spray paint. A slightly larger and more ambitious version of the tag is known as a throwie or a throw-up. A typical throwie has a background color and an outline in a second color. The interior color of the letters on a throw-up is known as the fill or fill-in. When the second color is only roughly sketched or lined in, the throwie is known as a scrub. The most ambitious graffiti of all is work that is done on a large scale in at least three colors, often incorporating fades or blended colors. This is known as a piece, short for, of course, a masterpiece.

The plastic cap or tip on a spray paint can determines the line weight. The standard caps that come with spray paint are known as sucker tips, and are often replaced with others, such as skinny tips, thin tips, thick tips, fat tips, or flare tips. The largest fat caps are sometimes known as softballs because of the soft round marks they make. Line width is sometimes described in fingers. A four-finger line is, for instance, about as a wide as a hand. Bubble letters, quite out of fashion now, were an early style of graffiti lettering with a rounded shape, and roller letters are large-scale tags drawn with paint rollers. To bomb an area is to profusely cover it with tags or throw-ups. To kill an area is to bomb it beyond a point of diminishing returns.

Have you got that?