Distinctive hand style lettering is an essential skill for artists and designers. Deftly executed hand crafted letter forms are a nearly forgotten art in an age of endless free fonts. Graffiti is one of the last reservoirs of highly refined, well-practiced penmanship. Within the pages of FLIP THE SCRIPT, the best hand styles are analysed, contextualising the work of graffiti writers from around America. Author Acker presents the various lettering samples in a clean organized format, giving the material a proper, formal treatment evoking classic typography books.

This collection of unique works by 150 Los Angeles graffiti and tattoo artists represents an unprecedented collaboration across the city’s diverse artistic landscape. Many graffiti artists carry sketchbooks, called black books, and they ask crew members and others whose work they admire to inscribe their books with lettering or drawings. A few years ago, the Getty Research Institute invited artists, including Angst, Axis, Big Sleeps, Chaz, Cre8, Defer, EyeOne, Fishe, Heaven, Hyde, Look, ManOne, and Prime, to consider the idea of a citywide graffiti black book. During visits to the Getty Center, the artists viewed rare books related to calligraphy and letterforms, including works by Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. The artists instantly recognized the connections to their own practices and were particularly drawn to a liber amicorum (book of friends), a form of autograph book popular in the seventeenth century. Passed from hand to hand, it was filled with signatures, poetry, and coats of arms, like a black book from another era. Inspired by this meeting of minds across centuries, these artists became both creators and curators, crafting their own pages and inviting others to contribute. Eventually 150 Los Angeles artists decorated 143 individual pages. These were bound together into an exquisite artists’ book that became known as the Getty Graffiti Black Book. This publication reproduces each page from the original artists’ book and recounts the story of an unprecedented collaboration across the diverse artistic landscape of Los Angeles.

This comprehensive and visual history of graffiti in Los Angeles examines the myriad styles and techniques used by writers today.A.Us most prolific and infamous writers provide insight into the lives of these fugitive artists.

An inside look at women graffiti artists around the world Since the dawn of Hip Hop graffiti writing on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1960s, writers have anonymously inscribed their tag names on trains, buildings, and bridges. Passersby are left to imagine who the author might be, and, despite the artists’ anonymity, graffiti subculture is seen as a “boys club,” where the presence of the graffiti girl is almost unimaginable. In Graffiti Grrlz, Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón interrupts this stereotype and introduces us to the world of women graffiti artists. Drawing on the lives of over 100 women in 23 countries, Pabón-Colón argues that graffiti art is an unrecognized but crucial space for the performance of feminism. She demonstrates how it builds communities of artists, reconceptualizes the Hip Hop masculinity of these spaces, and rejects notions of “girl power.” Graffiti Grrlz also unpacks the digital side of Hip Hop graffiti subculture and considers how it widens the presence of the woman graffiti artist and broadens her networks, which leads to the formation of all-girl graffiti crews or the organization of all-girl painting sessions. A rich and engaging look at women artists in a male-dominated subculture, Graffiti Grrlz reconsiders the intersections of feminism, hip hop, and youth performance and establishes graffiti art as a game that anyone can play.

The original collection featured in "Graffiti World" highlighted more than 2,000 illustrations by 150 artists from around the world. This updated edition includes a new section devoted to work created in the five years since the book's first edition.

Ranging from the birth of simple signature tags to today's vibrant murals, and covering the ups and downs of the movement, the culture's value system, and its social framework, "Graffiti New York" provides an essential history of this art form. Illustrated.

As dazzling as the art it celebrates, this volume is packed with 1,000 full-color illustrations and features in-depth interviews with more than 125 train artists and "writers" to provide unprecedented perspective into graffiti.