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.
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Street art is such a broad subject. It goes back to ancient cultures even. There are more than two styles, but I suppose you can break them into 2-3 categories. Two you mention, the third being murals – full works of art with the signature or tag somewhere less visible in the whole scheme of the piece.
But the modern styles you see are often considered to originate in New York as people would “tag”names similar to our own user names around town. The object of the “game” being to tag the most – quantity. These were just plain tags, written pretty clearly.
The line or signature style you mention is closer to pure tagging as above. Graffiti artists judge each other on the quality of the lines and letters – while they look the same to someone untrained, artists know if you’re copying someone or are otherwise unskilled or uncreative. They tend to cruise around all night writing their name/tag on everything. The line styles were born out of the need to get the tag up fast to increase the quantity you can do in a short amount of time, and also to decrease the chance of getting caught.
Graffiti is mostly about notoriety in the scene. If the first way to get notoriety or respect is pure quantity, the other way is quality. This is where you see the “bubble” or block lettering. These will have more color, intricate lines, shading and other qualities you’d attribute to more traditional graphic art. Additionally, location and space are increasingly important to the art form – think of doing a wall at street level vs a piece in a seemingly impossible or dangerous spot. The latter is much more impressive and will garner more notoriety.
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