Broadly speaking, I’ve noticed 2 “styles” of tag graffiti: Serif-y line signature-like tags and big bubble writing. This is broadly speaking, there are of course subtleties, but as an outsider, graffiti can look very similar and does feel like they mostly fall into these 2 groups, whether it’s in North America, Europe, etc. You don’t usually hear “that is European style tagging”, I just see bubbly text no matter the location, and they not noticeable different to an outsider the way, say, American food looks different than Chinese food.
Was tagging a thing everywhere and they happened to look similar? Did styles in different places converge? Was there a cult of bubble taggers and the leader told them to spread the gospel around the world? Am I wrong with a biased dataset (noting of course there can be lesser seen visual styles)? ELI5.
Flairing as “other” as this is sort of a sociology topic, probably.
In: 362
There’s tags, throw ups (the bubbles you speak if and also including straight letters too) and pieces (the more complex multicolored ones).
Mostly started in NYC but obviously people were writing on walls all over the world to some degree.
While these categories exist and can be found all over the world now, there are regional differences in style. This has become more difficult to differentiate post internet but here are some regional styles (e.g. phillie tall tags, SF bus hopper tags, etc). And there is definitely a difference in taste in Europe vs US.
One more thing to add. I find a lot of outsiders to graffiti assume that pretty, magnificent, beautiful is what is best and strived for but that’s not the case at all. There’s rough and then there can be very tasteful rough. And even the novice rougher graffiti can make a strong statement in some cases. The goal is expression and its through a language based on style. Not a simple axis of prettiness and complexity.
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