Street Art & Graffiti Typography: Fonts & Lettering

Some weeks ago, I presented the “Calligraffiti” book by Niels Shoe Meulman to you and described it as a very interesting art book because it contains a lot of amazing and very exactly and detailed artworks. Some days ago, Shoe agree to give my an short interview and I tried to get as much as info about his personal background as well as about the ideas behind Calligraffiti. I hope you’ll like it… ...

There are already some articles about French urban artists Rero and his “Image Negation” artworks, but recently, he agreed to answer some of my questions about himself, the intention behind his abandoned artworks and about the popularity of clear and simple typography artworks around the world. To cut a long story short, here is my first interview with one of my current favorite urban artists from Europe… uac: Although you are relatively unknown for the majority of the people, your urban artworks have become very popular recently. How would you describe yourself? Where are you from? And how would you characterise your work? ...

A month ago, I told you about that very interesting art book by king calligrapher Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Now it’s, in addition to the Modart No. 01, in my possession and I’m very happy about that! With prologues by John Langdon and Adam Eeuwens, who are internationally active graphic designers and typographers, the about 120 pages book impress with high-quality photographs of Shoe’s artworks as well as with some great digital vector artworks. ...

“New Type York” is a photoblog curated by New York based graphic designer James Patrick Gibson, who will periodically post shots of typographic details from the street s of New York City: The premise is simple: A daily archive of images of typographic artifacts all around New York City. Signs, directions and building inscriptions are all fair game. The goal: Amass a typographic personality of New York, by cataloging all of its memorable and beautiful pieces of typography. (About New Type York) ...

Some weeks ago, I wrote an article about urban artist Rero and his abandoned messages. Yesterday I received an e-mail by Rero with nice photos of new artworks attached, which I will show you today! “It was too cold in Berlin to paste up and making stencils as well … so I come back to Paris and the following result… Some fresh abandonned messages about Image Negation featuring Ludo!” (Rero) “Image Negation” is Rero’s recent street art project. It’s minimalist typography with deletion, serving a lot of joke and understanding. I like this abandoned messages! ...

I was really flashed, when I saw the photos of Rero’s great new text-message artworks in an abandoned hospital somewhere in Paris yesterday on Ekosystem! Rero is a conceptual artist with a graffiti background, although the only similarity between graffiti and his artworks is that both can be seen on the streets. He calls his very minimalistic and simple style “Image Negation”, which is a reversion of the rules of classical illustration: ...

Today I found a very nice video by Job and Roel Wouters about the fun of drawing letters. Job Wouters is better known as “Letman” - He’s an internationally known typographer who also created artworks in urban environment. His brother Roel is a conditional designer who lives and works in Amsterdam. Both will be part of the “If You Could Collaborate” exhibition in London, where they will present their new “Rainbow Gun”. It’s a self-made, cumbersome looking hand-held spray-painting machine. ...

Do you know the Slanted magazine? It’s a typography magazine, which exists since 2005 and is published quarterly. It combines the sectors typography, layout, illustration and photography. The ninth issue, named “Stencil. Type.”, of the Slanted magazine is about stencil fonts and their modern applications! “Slanted presents the innovative work of Gavillet & Rust and their fontlabel Optimo (Geneva), the large format paintings of Christopher Wool (New York), an impressive photo series of Francois Fleruy (Paris) and many more. The sections “Fontlabels, Fonts & Families”, “Fontnames Illustrated” and “Typolyrics” introduce contemporary fonts and designers from all over the world, followed by interviews with John Boardley, Kouga Hirano and Chip Kidd and an interesting type essay by Hannes von Döhren.” ...

When industrial design meets typography - Dutch artist Pieter de Leeuw, who just graduated in Industrial Design, designed a very interesting bookshelf as his thesis! It contains out of several separate letters and tries to give the consumers maximum freedom of using it. The wooden letters in various colors can be arranged to the user’s liking and could also be used as seating. I like those crazy interior designs! On the one hand it’s really simple, but on the other hand there’s a great concept! However, I need such a letters bookshelf for my next apartment… ...

Yes, i love his artworks! Yes, he is one of my idols and a great inspirational source. Yes, some of my tape artworks are mainly influenced by him. Yes, I talk about L’Atlas! French street artist L’Atlas is currently in New York for his “City Fragments” urban art exhibition. His internationally-known and outstanding artworks became a symbol of the modern mixture of playful typography and the accuracy of architectural presets. Whether with paint, tape or chalk, there are no borders for L’Atlas’ unique style. His signs, letters and compasses are highly recognizable and and there is no restriction on their sizes. ...