Sustainable typography

due to the fact that it's largely type-based

?

Street calligrapher signs with font company

@eliason - Check the Wikipedia page on Graffiti or just google for the word. Much of it is heavily-ornamented word art, even if the type design looks about sixteen cuckoos north-by-northwest to me.

I think Craig meant that there is a fundamental difference between type and lettering.

Depends on if he meant type or a type. (But a type of what? Is street art a type?) And lettering or not, it's still sixteen cuckoos N-by-NW even if it's rad.

This I like more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffito_%28archaeology%29

@ Chris ... awesome link thanks! That guy, Cui Xianren (above image), has some amazing life in his strokes and character shapes as a whole. Immediately reminded me of Chaz Bojorquez, and then onto Retina, and then back onto some old school black letter 'artists' - who also had such a natural talent for letter (character) shapes.

(I won't bore the stodgy here with a long list of amazing graff writters.)

Old and new graffiti letter shapes coming up off from the streets have a lot more life to them than something puked from a 'puter. Especially the stuff being crapped out fontstruct. Letter shapes on the street express a dynamic gesture - something you can't fake in font lab. It seems to me that the people laying it down on the street are by far more natural in their letter shape talent than most of the well heeled 'puter driven type designers. But the well heeled 'puter driven type designer is by far more - clever.

And as for your new found friend Blek Le Rat, I've followed his work for some time now. It's interesting to note in today's auction houses the number of artist who's stuff has come up from the streets is dramatically increasing.

@5star:

@Chris:

Definitely worth a chuckle. Or three.

Yo C., Blek le Rat (a.k.a. Xavier Prou) will be at SPMOMA dealin' his new book: Blek le Rat: The 30 Year Anniversary Retrospective - in case you're in the 'hood.

Of course you probably already got the news ;)

http://museumstore.sfmoma.org/bllera30yean.html

Yes, I did come across this in some sort of casual context, but have not seen this formal link. Thanks. If I recall correctly, whoever was speaking about Xavier was doing so in a sort of trash-talk “he’s sold out and lost his street cred” tone of voice, which then trailed off into a discussion of the significance of Lowbrow Art.

Most of my crew are art-college freaks so this happens. The rest are scientists in which case we trail off into discussions involving 3 millisecond eye movement latencies and the like (between you and me, the art-college folk throw better parties).

And check this out. An old partner of mine was getting a PhD in Graffiti and 18th century glass wear. She knew I was fond of fonts, and was also a spectacular cook. She would even prepare me bag lunches. One morning I woke up to a brown bag onto which you can see she tagged it with a big capital C for me. How sweet is that?

Figure 1: The lunch bag that boosted Dean’s playground cred.

Kewl. And the green arrow (comic reference?) looks kinda sorta like a 'd'.

Chris, have you seen RETNA's latest...

He had that awesome famous wall to get his work up at Houston and Bowery in New York.

I find both graffiti artists RETNA (Marquis Lewis) and Chaz Bojorquez distinctive styles to be very inspirational. Someday I'd like to create a unique script too.

More on RETN's wall: http://streetartnyc.org/blog/2012/03/06/retna-brings-his-distinct-script...

More on Chaz Bojorquez: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&gs_nf=1&cp=14&gs_id=7&xhr=t&q=chaz+boj...

Retna is amazing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48413419@N00/4787419207/in/set-721576271028...
I'd like to interview him one day, but he's too big now.

hhp

I think RETNA is really grounded. He would reply for sure, and who knows you might just get what you're after. If you do please publish it in CODEX.

To me, I see the rich history of Blackletter in both Chaz and RETINA's work and that is where I have begun my journey too.

I tried emailing, but when that didn't work I tried to get
in touch with the store (a tattoo place) that that mural
on Flickr is on. Nobody was ever there, and their phone
number didn't work. So I used Google Street View and
saw the landlord's "for lease" banner on the building and
called him! Eventually I managed to leave a message for
Retna saying he might consider some TypeCon-LA angle,
but never heard back...

Codex is a good angle. I already have a relationship
there (I have an article in the upcoming #2) so maybe
I should ask John Boardley to try getting his ear.

hhp

There's actually quite a good number of films about graff.

here's a few:

Style Wars
Wildstyle
the Dirty Hands series
Exit Through the Giftshop

if you care to look at some photos, http://www.graffiti.org/ has enough to keep you busy for a week straight or so

Head over to 12oz if you're interested in the graff scene at all.
12ozprophet.com

This documentary is called Piece by Piece. its the best graffiti documentary i've seen so far.
http://youtu.be/7Ub8uRFzUCQ

actually. Retna's graffiti crew members are in this documentary was well.

Piece by Piece is an interesting overview of the San Fran scene back in the day and up to now, thanks for posting. The locals freaking out on each other over turf make the film more of a local perspective tho.

Speaking of which, and also going to the heart of the that documentary is a groove going on now simply called The C/S Project...

http://cslashs.com/site/

I’m about to watch: London Tonight - Underground UK graffiti documentary & British HIP HOP music film

http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-Tonight-Underground-graffiti-documentary/...

Only to discover all the links where I “found” it are borken. Dammit!