10 Types Of Amazing Graffiti

Street-art through the ages...

The release of the 40th anniversary edition of ‘Physical Graffiti’ by Led Zeppelin has seen numerous examples of street graffiti marking the album’s release appearing around London. The band’s guitarist Jimmy Page has said that the album title was inspired by the new artform that was emerging out of the US at the time and starting to spread across the rest of the world.

We thought that we would look at other forms of graffiti that have made their mark (quite literally) over the last 40 years...

1. Hip-hop and B-boy

The spread of aerosol spray paints in the 60s and 70s resulted in an explosion of graffiti, allowing artists a variety of colours, increased control and the ability to work at speed (an important factor due to the often illicit nature of the process).

The most famous examples of this emerged from New York in the late 70s, where subway cars, buildings and buses became the canvas for works of art that were to inspire generations of future graffiti artists. Closely link to the nascent hip-hop scene, the movement found international fame through the films ‘Wild Style’ and ‘Style Wars’

2.Tagging

Out of this came the creation of the ‘tag’ an easily recognisable signature design which an artist uses to identify themselves.

3.Stencil

Pioneered by Blek le Rat in Paris in the early 80s, the use of stencils allowed graffiti artist to create detailed, elaborate works and lead to a transition of the way that graffiti was viewed, with what was previously seen as vandalism now being recognised as ‘street art’

4.Banksy

The most famous proponent of this is of course Banksy, the mysterious figure whose works are now valued at millions of pounds.

5.Political / Protest

Many of Banksy’s works contain political messages. These follow a long and illustrious history of graffiti being used as a vehicle for expressing discontent.

6.Advertising

Perhaps the polar opposite, from the slogans of protest highlighted above is the use of graffiti as a form of advertising. Many big brands have tried to embrace graffiti as a way of ‘cool’ advertising. IBM tried this tactic in 2001 when they sprayed the logo for their new Linux range on pavements – resulting in fines of over $120,000

7.Hero worship

Graffiti has also been as means of fans declaring their love for bands, football teams, stars and more. The legend ‘Clapton is God’ was regularly spotted around London in the late 60s.

8.Offensive

Not all graffiti is so complimentary, sometimes it just provides an outlet for all manner of negative outbursts…

9.Toilet humour

Toilet walls have long provided a forum for would be comedians like this one…

10.Moss graffiti

Moss Graffiti has grown (excuse the pun) in popularity in recent years as an environmentally friendly alternative to aerosol based graffiti. In this process moss is glued onto a surface by means of beer, buttermilk, or yogurt combined with sugar to create the image.