Street Graphics

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The Project Brief

Bullet point summary

Cities are in a continuos state of flux

Characterised between Destruction and Reconstruction 

Fusion between Physical forms and Social compositions

Need to research into the Graphic Language of the Street

How does imagery bombard the senses with Visual messages? 

Use towns / cities as a visual stimulus

Need to organise and curate an exhibition of work at the end of the project

Need to produce a Micro site, invite and poster to promote the exhibition

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Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

Banksy, Wall and Piece

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What is Street Art?

"Street art is art, specifically visual art, developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork,sculpture, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, and street installations. Typically, the termstreet art or the more specific post-graffiti is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art."

So it seems there is no simply definition of Street art. It appears, at first, as another contemporary art form; but one that embraces an urban Environment. However it often encompasses various subversions of modern life. It's not simply produced for aesthetic purposes or to be withheld in a private gallery; only to be experienced by those with specific privileges. Street Art is an individuals statement upon the world. An imprint of their political, social and philosophical views made publicly accessible. 

Considered by some a nuisance, for others street art is a tool for communicating views of dissent, asking difficult questions and expressing political concerns. 

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Some of the the most influential and distinctly infamous examples of Street art is produced by an unknown artist who goes by the alias 'Banksy'

Bansky is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world

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Further examples of Conventional Street Art

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What is Street Art / Graphics?

It's definition and users are changing: originally a tool to mark territorial boundaries of urban youth and gangs, It no longer confides to the conventional spray paint graffiti and stencils. 

Artist EVOL created towering residential skyscrapers out of concrete slabs. They are his personal interpretation of the current state of residential areas and has simply been left for anybody to stumble upon. A Piece like this is so creative and intriguing, I envy the people who discover his work in the wild without any knowledge of the artist. Imagine how fun it would be to stumble onto this?

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Similarly, street art collective Mentalgassi has partnered with Amnesty International and Wieden + Kennedy creative team Lisa Jelliffe and Kirsten Rutherford to help highlight some of the year's most prominent human rights abuse cases playing out around the world.

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Is street art illegal?

The legal distinction between permanent graffiti and art is permission, but the topic becomes even more complex regarding impermanent, nondestructive forms of graffiti (yarn bombing, video projection, and street installation.)With permission, traditional painted graffiti is technically considered public art. Without permission, painters of public and private property are committing vandalism and are, by definition, criminals. However, it still stands that most street art is unsanctioned, and many artists who have painted without permission, (Banksy, Shepard Fairey)  have been glorified as legitimate and socially conscious artists.Although it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to clearly define what unsanctioned imagery is art and what is not, the effects of such images can be observed and conclusions can be reached regarding images’ function within a public environment.

Vandalism is inexcusable destruction of property, and has been shown to have negative repercussions on its setting. It has also been observed by criminologists to have a ‘snowball effect’ of generating more negativity within its vicinity. Dr. James Q. Wilson and Dr. George Kelling studied the effects of disorder (in this case, a broken window) in an urban setting, and found that one instance of neglect increases the likelihood of more broken windows and graffiti will appear. Then, there is an observable increase in actual violent crime. The researchers concluded there is a direct link between vandalism, street violence, and the general decline of a society.Their theory, named the Broken Window Theory and first published in 1982, argues that crime is the inevitable result of disorder, and that if neglect is present in a place, whether it is disrepair or thoughtless graffiti, people walking by will think no one cares about that place, and the unfavorable damage is therefore acceptable.

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The Forms of Street Art

Traditional- Painting on the surfaces of public or private property that is visible to the public, commonly with a can of spray paint or roll-on paint. It may be comprised of just simple words (commonly the writer’s name) or be more artful and elaborate, covering a surface with a mural image.

Stencil- Painting with the use of a homemade stencil, usually a paper or cardboard cutout, to create an image that can be easily reproduced. The desired design is cut out of a selected medium, and the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint.

Sticker- (aka sticker bombing, slap tagging, and sticker tagging) Propagates an image or message in public spaces using homemade stickers. These stickers commonly promote a political agenda, comment on a policy or issue, or comprise an avantgarde art campaign. Sticker art is considered a subcategory of postmodern art.

Mosaic- Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of smaller parts or pieces, to resemble a single giant piece of art.

Video Projection- Digitally projecting a computer-manipulated image onto a surface via a light and projection system.

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When did Designers become involved?

As street art developed as an individual element within contemporary Art & Design, it started to gain certain recognition and associations with urban environments internationally. The techniques artists were using developed, advanced and was starting to branch out onto various other media and platforms. As a result advertising agencies soon started incorporating elements of Street art into their Ads and thus, a new world of visual experimentation began. Companies and Corporate agencies realised that Graffiti Advertising was a great way to deliver brand messages directly to a younger audience.

There are now Advertising companies that specialise purely in Street Advertising - working with designers, marketing specialists, artists and developers all within one creative team.

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Drawing is a way of talking, without opening my mouth. I aim to capture a particular atmosphere using inspirations from the world around me - I draw what I'm seeing and feeling in aparticular environment.

Ericailcane, Street Sketchbook

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Starting To generate Ideas for the project, I thought a Mind Map was the way to go.

Click The Picture for a larger version

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Street Photography - Idea 1

Street photographyis a type ofphotographythat features subjects in candid situations withinpublic placessuch asstreets,parks,beaches,malls,political conventionsand other settings.

Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with.

There isn't a lot of explanation needed for this particular Idea. It is simply expressing a Town / City through it's people. More than anything, the media, format, subject and technique are what are due to be explored further for this concept. However, finding a way to link it into Graphic Design is where the true challenge lies!

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Drawing based work - Idea 2

Inspired by the mural work of graffiti artist Deck Two, one of my original Ideas for this project was to create line drawings of a particular town/city. Rather than a Slavish reproduction of this style, I want to try and explore the technique and add personal characteristics to the piece.

Probably the easiest way to do so, would be  Digitally; Producing either a Photoshop bitmap or Illustrator Vector. Similar to the perspective distortions often found in graffiti work, I do like the idea of creating a caricatured cityscape drawing.

I also quite like the idea of creating a conventional graffiti design, similar to the one show above, but using a town/city's architecture; instead of simple shapes. This is something I'll definitely need to experiment with.

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Traditional Graffiti - Idea 3

In it's RAW form, graffiti art and design is political based. It's a way of allowing an individual to express their views/opinions publicly, in ways which may not have been physically possibly before. 

The use of street art as a political movement has lead to the production of "Geurilla advertising and marketing". 

Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy in which low-cost unconventional means (graffiti, sticker bombing, flash mobs) are utilized, often in a localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerrilla warfare which utilizes atypical tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive and unforgiving environment.

One of the most Notorious examples of Guerilla marketing is based around the work of Che Guvera. He was a Marxist revolutionary who's stylized face became an instant pop-icon

This type of marketing is always based around very important / heated issues and debates. More recently the techniques have been adopted by Hacking activist group, Anonymous, and their associations with the occupy Wall Street Movements.

However a lot of people still consider this graffiti a 'nuisance' and a destruction of urban environments. Its seen a nothing more than criminal activities.

But why? 

Regardless of how important a lot of the highlighted issues may be, In my personal opinion, people don't find them relevant. Everyday families don't want to go out and protest amongst the streets because the bankers are gaining massive bonuses, whilst they pay more tax than the multi-million pound industries? Why? Because it's too much of a sacrifice they have to pay for something they know will probably never change. However, I think it could be quite interesting to create a series of guerilla designs around the topics people do seem to care about; e.g. X factor?  Im a Celeb?

I could create a series of stencils, similar to the Che Guvera portrait, but of 'Ryland's' face from X factor instead? simply saying 'Vote Ryland' instead? The Visual Juxtaposition would stand as a political statement on it's own. To see the graffiti in which people may actually take interest in. 

Whilst it is visually humorous as a piece on it's own, on a deeper level the stencil is an ironic political statement. It highlights the fact that people care more about trivial events than the important issues in day to say life.

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To create a stencil of this particular design would be quite tricky and would have to be done so on a large scale to reduce any simplification of edge details. However, 'sticker bombing' may be a viable option for this concept. 

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