A Work By Team Robbo

Often referred to as graffiti, tagging, or more negatively as vandalism, street-art has been around for 40ish years as it was birthed in the 70 but only gained a real popularity in the mid-80’s. Recently documentaries such as “Exit through the gift shop” have brought attention to the subculture and personalities of street art. I find that not only is this art and interesting visual style, but it is an important demonstration of the power in blending pictures, text and color into one piece. The piece by Team Robbo, is in the style of more traditional graffiti, whereas the piece by Banksy is what some consider to be “post-graffiti”. I argue that the same goal is intended for each piece though how it is achieved varies greatly. For both of these pieces, the main choice is typography. In the Team Robbo piece, each letter becomes onto itself an image - and in some cases can be replaced by images as seen here. This is reminiscent of the heavily stylized lettering that would begin each chapter in old books. To those that follow styles like Team Robbo’s, the execution of this text; including color, shape, and its relationship to other letters and the backing, it’s execution and even the choice of placement all add together to build up the “street cred” of the piece and author.

A Work By Bansky

 In Banksy’s piece the use of a simple typeface reinforces the message by linking it to other simple graffiti that carries social motivation. The sparse use of colors is typical of a Banksy piece, but the red lettering on a white background and placed next to a black rat causes the words to really stand out and draw attention. But how do these very differing styles of typography align? Simply put, both of these pieces have been shaped by decisions to draw a large audience, one to build street cred, the other to spread the message. While the Team Robbo does this through a large, colorful, and eye-catching style, Banksy takes a simpler approach and uses two colors to the same effect.
Just as an aside, they once even had a graffiti-off as they fought over the same piece of wall. The progression pictures area great demonstration of how though style differs the message and drive can be the same