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I would like to explore graffiti that is semi-illegible as I think it would be interesting to explore 'decoding' the letters and seeing how they compare to traditional typefaces. One problem with this is that I will need to gain some insight into how to recognise the different letters in difficult to read graffiti.

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Street art tours in Madrid by Cooltourspain

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According to EuropaPress, the Spanish public railway operator RENFE spends 15.7€ millions every year cleaning what writers paint in their wagons. Furthermore, tag graffiti might be observed as a problem by many institutions. However, what are they doing to prevent what they consider vandalism?

Where are the limit boundaries between what is considered art and what's not? How is it possible that institutions from all over the world spend these amounts of money while street art gallery owners benefit from it?

Today's article will bring you a clearer image of what urban art is. A group of experts will inform you about what's not and what does the general audience think about.

Definition

People's opinion

Tag graffiti history

Different styles

What is a tag in graffiti?

Tags painted over a metal door

We define tagging as the act of writing your tag graffiti name in the street walls, metal shutters or any other surface with spray paint, markers, chalk or any other commonly used product.

In the same vein, we would identify those people who tag in the walls as writers. There is no current pattern that they follow. Artists always carry a half-full spray can or any other spare element in their bags. If they see somewhere appropriate where to paint, they do it. Any time of the day/night is good for it!

These graffiti writers follow ethic codes and share ideas, styles and techniques all over the world. Moreover, they are connected. Every time one artist visits a foreign country, he/she contacts fellow friends in order to find the best spots in the city they are travelling to.

What's the global population opinion over the graffiti movement?

City council worker removing a tag in New York city

In general terms, there exists a profound negative mentality towards tag graffiti. Societies from the 5 continents observe 'tags' (graffiti names written on walls) as a filthy art expression. Likewise, writers are prosecuted.

The Spanish Civil Code penalizes them through the articles 1.902, 1.903 and 1.904. Similarly, articles 50, 116, 263, 264, 625 and 626 in the national Penal Code blame graffiti artists who act without permission from business or building owners.

It is also interesting to mention people's point of view when talking about street art. They love it. Citizens from all ages think that these kind of artworks embellish the city and offer a colorful perspective in the urban landscapes.

How many styles of a tag graffiti does there exist?

Many different graffiti tags painted in a vehicle in Madrid, Spain

The art industry has observed as the tag graffiti movement evolved from its beginnings. Artists started using low quality materials and paint manufacturers improved the products that writers use in a daily way. Nonetheless, they believe in the same core values.

In addition, the styles that we are talking about to you today are spread all over the world. Similarly, shops focus on selling dabbers, markers, spray paint from different brands. We could differenciate between European and American elements.

What's the history behind 'graffiti tags'?

The first tags observed in modern history correspond to a writer named Cornbread (Philadelphia, US - 1965). Despite the fact that there were others who painted before him, none of the them made it to the news and remained unknown.

The movement travelled from one state to another. Soon, there were other tags which appeared in New York city. Artists copied the same tagging technique, 'bombing' one of the most famous capital cities around the world. Please note that the term 'bombing' is not related to terrorist attacks, but a series of tags painted in a short period of time.

Taki 183, Cay 161, Papo 184, Barbara and Eva 62 were some of the names that Francisco Reyes, a Spanish Phd graffiti professor at Complutense University in Madrid mentioned in his doctoral thesis.

1-. Brodway Elegant

It was the year 1967. Young kids started tagging on walls their names, plus the number of the street they lived in. The artist Top Cat 126 moved from Philadelphia to New York city. We consider him as the pioneer for this tag graffiti style.

'Broadway Elegant' was born. It was also known as Manhattan Style, because it marks the first typographic wave within New York City graffiti history.

This specific style featured long slender letters, which often had platforms on the bottoms of the stems. Broadway Elegant was named after the famous New York City Broadway boulevard which bends from Brooklyn through Manhattan al the way up to Yonkers.

You have to imagine that graffiti styles also differentiated crews/gangs from closeby neighborhoods.

2-. Brooklyn

Similarly to what happened in other districts in NYC, Brooklyn based tag graffiti writers developed their own style. As you may be aware, it was the beginning of an artistic war. Young kids tried to create better lettering than the rest.

How did it differentiated from the rest? Artists used arrows, circles, spirals and even hearts to decorate their writing style. Letters were separated from each other and it was easier to recognize the person who tagged.

3-. Bronx style

A logical response to the sensual thin lines of the Broadway Elegant style was the introduction of Bronx Style, also known as bubble letters. We consider the artist Phase 2 as the pioneer of this unique tagging style.

Lonny Wood was the name behind Phase2. Why did he use that tag graffiti then? It was because of the success of a graffiti styles meeting that he organized. Observing that there was a second chapter, he decided to start 'bombing' the streets with that given alias.

It was in the corner of 149th and Grand Concourse where all writers met after/before high school. They could easily observe trains passing by. It was the beginning of train writing with bubble lettering.

Cooltourspain opinion about the tag graffiti

Last but not least, Cooltourspain team members wanted to share with the internet community our thoughts about tag graffiti. We believe that if the city council would allow and promote graffiti in each different neighborhood, vandalism would decrease.

Is that difficult for city majors and their cultural government members to allow some walls where people could just paint without being prosecuted?

Help us sign the petition to paint the walls in our neighborhood!

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Everthing you wanted to know about tag graffiti in less than 5 minutes read

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According to EuropaPress, the Spanish public railway operator RENFE spends 15.7€ millions every year cleaning what writers paint in their wagons. Furthermore, tag graffiti might be observed as a problem by many institutions. However, what are they doing to prevent what they consider vandalism?

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Mathieu Tremblin has been painting over hard to decipher tags and recreating them in an easily legible font.
Tremblin's version of the tags makes them seem innocuous and boring, but that's what makes them so unique. After years of walking past graffiti tags every single day our minds eventually adapt to them so much so that they are simply part of our environment. Nobody ever notices new tags unless they are on a previously immaculate surface. But when the tags are in Tremblin's font they grab you by the ears and force you to pay attention; by making the tags legible you see how mundane the intricately detailed tags really are.
I think Tremblin's idea of rewriting tags is really interesting. It's like opening up tagging culture to a whole new set of people. It also shows how much more interesting they are when they are in a more messy graffiti style.

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I started by photographing any letters I saw, but I began to focus on graffiti lettering. I think graffiti is an underappreciated and demonised form of typography and I want to explore how it can be compared to traditional typefaces and why it is widely disliked.

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I was inspired by Ed Fella's work on typography. In some of his works he would take pictures of type he liked and then traced over it to create the design he wanted. I thought this could work with my exploration into graffiti.

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I used illustrator to make the letters into vectors. I think it's an interesting idea because graffiti is meant to be rough and analogue.

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I was also inspired by the layout of venn diagrams and how they allow us to see overlaps in similarities and differences.

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I thought it would be interesting to compare traditional type with graffiti because graffiti is so demonised within our culture. I overlaid them to show their similarities and how they differ. I used Times New Roman because it is a popular serif font that is associated with class and professional work.

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After designing the first set of type for my alphabet, I realised that the point of my design was not very obvious. To change this I decided to make the intersected part of the text the focus while the other two parts are plain black and white.

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"The aura is an effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space. It is connected to the idea of authenticity. A reproduced artwork is never fully present. If there is no original, it is never fully present anywhere. Authenticity cannot be reproduced, and disappears when everything is reproduced. Benjamin thinks that even the original is depreciated, because it is no longer unique. Along with their authenticity, objects also lose their authority."

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There are positives and negatives to reproducing art (which graffiti is controversially referred to). When reproduced digitally, graffiti can be more accepted within society as it has lost the 'roughness' it is associated with from its connotations of poverty and misconduct. When the digital reproduction is used on merchandise e.g. Banksy memorabilia, it becomes a tool for monetary gain which goes against the meaning of graffiti; to send a message- it does not need a frame or approval.

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I took photos of graffiti tags near me. I liked these ones because it took me a while to associate them with a letter.

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This is my final found alphabet. I wanted it to be like a guide to graffiti tags that can help people that are unfamiliar with street art understand it, I was inspired by Mathieu Tremblin's translation of tagging. This would help graffiti to be less demonised within society and the stigma around it may change. For something we probably see every day I don't think it is appreciated enough. The typography style is so unique and I think it could be used well in other projects rather than being restricted to the streets.

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"These pieces are inextricably linked to the exact locations they were created and photographed in. To remove them from these locations is to change the work of art from something created by the artist to something else entirely."

Brian A. Brown, "Digitized Street Art" (2015).

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The Importance of Digitizing Street Art Heritage

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In 2019, SAMA began a project to digitise its collection with the aim of preserving and disseminating its artworks. The museum's collection and staff expertise have already been cited in more than 100 research papers and the catalogue will give the museum the opportunity to provide a globally accessible tool for research.

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I was inspired by this poster by Herbert Spencer. I like the bright coloured squares he uses because it makes them stand out individually. The mix of different typography gives it a quirky edge. When I lay out my graffiti letterforms I would like to use coloured squares like this, but I think I will make them uniform to emphasise the idea of cleaning up graffiti.