Graffiti Letter 4

[Chadwick Bosse]

Ourcollection of graffiti letters currently contains over 150 images. Our aim is to update it regularly and provide many different styles as a source of inspiration. Click the letter-buttons above or the images of the letters below to filter the graffiti alphabet and display the collection of the requested letter.

In our tutorial section, we just want to focus on how to draw graffiti letters step-by-step and the step-by-step drawing process of graffiti, as can be seen in the example next to this text.

Originally it was believed that Graffiti originated out of New York but in actuality it started decades before in Los Angeles. Cholo or placas writing is shown in photographs going back as far as the 1930s and 1940s, and unlike the New York scene it was not decorative in any way it was formed strictly as a functional form of signs and codes for street gangs to mark their territory. Today we know it for being the iconic script that perfectly represented the low rider and hip-hop culture that emerged from California. What is also interesting to note is this style never evolved into the throw-up styles that came out of New York and still today it has its monochromatic old English font.

In the early days of the New York scene however it was just about putting up your tag and no one really thought of or approached letters outside of the font and style that people saw on a daily basis in newspapers and magazines. But as the art form evolved we got throw-ups and blockbuster styles, both were a step in the direction towards the larger more complex style you see in graffiti today. Throw ups emphasized the flow between the different letters layering them on top of one another and the blockbuster style took the opposite approach by taking letters and spacing them evenly apart from one another and adding the 3-dimensional aspect to the letters. Throw-ups are now recognized as a middle ground between putting up a simple tag and doing full pieces and they became the basis for what graffiti would evolve into since much of the earlier throw-ups emphasized losing the lines between the letters to give them momentum and flow.

Drawing inspiration from the amazing art around the RiNo Arts District we'll have a hands-on exploration of graffitti fundamentals playing with wild style and other lettering fonts, talk about color ideas, composition design and other cool ways to experiment in the medium.

About ArtPark Al Fresco:

Join RiNo Art District, Two Bee Industries, and the Denver Public Library! This July and August we'll be getting outside to make a host of unconventional and totally cool interactive objects together, from graffiti lettering and embroidery to crafting frankencreatures by cutting up old creatures and sewing them back together. Workshops are free with all supplies and dinner included! Kids, teens, and their adult friends are all encouraged to participate with individual and group projects. Pets welcome!

About the instructor:

Arts educator Shawn Bowman specializes in renegade art education creating humorous modern artifacts, workshop instruction and game design. Passionate about enabling creative communities, Bowman empowers students both young and old with hands on craft projects, literacy through comic writing and creating table top games.

Graffiti is an essentially single-stroke shorthand handwriting recognition system used in PDAs based on the Palm OS. Graffiti was originally written by Palm, Inc. as the recognition system for GEOS-based devices such as HP's OmniGo 100 and 120 or the Magic Cap-line and was available as an alternate recognition system for the Apple Newton MessagePad, when NewtonOS 1.0 could not recognize handwriting very well. Graffiti also runs on the Windows Mobile platform, where it is called "Block Recognizer", and on the Symbian UIQ platform as the default recognizer and was available for Casio's Zoomer PDA.

The software is based primarily on a neography of upper-case characters that can be drawn blindly with a stylus on a touch-sensitive panel. Since the user typically cannot see the character as it is being drawn, complexities have been removed from four of the most difficult letters. "A" "F", "K" and "T" all are drawn without any need to match up a cross-stroke.

Some letters can be drawn with strokes other than the "official" ones. Two examples of these alternative strokes are the letters "V" (drawn the same only from right to left) and "X" (drawn the same as the letter "K" except reversed from right to left). These alternative strokes are frequently recognized with greater reliability.

Graffiti was developed by Jeff Hawkins, who had previously created "PalmPrint" (the character recognition system used by the Casio Zoomer[1]) to recognize natural handwriting.[2] By using a simpler alphabet, computers could easily recognize handwriting. Hawkins believed that people would take the time to learn Graffiti just as people learn to touch-type. Hawkins recalled his insight: "And then it came to me in a flash. Touch-typing is a skill you learn."[2]

Hawkins called this system "PowerPalmPrint" or P3. Other engineers at Palm revised and expanded the alphabet that Hawkins had created. Joe Sipher and Ron Marianetti created more characters and punctuation and also designed a prototype of Graffiti that ran on a PC with a tablet peripheral.[2]

Graffiti was also implemented on the Apple Newton. In 2008, an unauthorized version of Graffiti was introduced for iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices. An Android version was released in 2010 by ACCESS Co., Ltd. of Japan, which acquired the rights to Graffiti when it acquired PalmSource, Inc. in 2005.[3] The original patent expired at the end of 2016.[4]

The original Graffiti system was the subject of a lawsuit from Xerox, claiming it violated Xerox's patent relating to its Unistrokes technology (U.S. patent 5,596,656, granted in 1997). The Unistrokes technology was invented at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) by David Goldberg in 1993.[6]

Palm later appealed the original court ruling both on the claim it violated Xerox's patent and as to the validity of the patent in the first place. An appeals court ruled in favor of Xerox with regard to the original ruling, that Palm had violated Xerox's patent, but sent the case back down to the lower court to decide whether the patent was valid to begin with. In 2004, a judge ruled in favor of Palm on the patent review, saying Xerox's patent was not valid on the basis that "prior art references anticipate and render obvious the claim."[7][8][9] Xerox appealed the ruling.[10] Xerox also obtained a US$22.5 million payment from Palm for retrospective licensing fees. Palm and Xerox agreed to not sue each other for seven years over certain patents, without publicly specifying which patents.[11]

Each color represents a stroke that is repeated throughout the alphabet to make up letterforms. Obviously, some strokes are varied ever so slightly to fit their size or placement placement within a given letterform. However, the technique used to create that stroke is still the same.

If you made it this far, you essentially have all you need to progress further on your own! However, keep in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are no limits to what you can create when you delve into the abstract realm of art.

Draw the X and Y axis on your surface to break the space into four boxes. In each box, you will ask students to do different designs. You will also do a demonstration drawing for each design. Students can use their initials to start, or any two letters of their choosing.

By giving them different challenges, students are breaking habits in their mind and creating new ways to design. After filling up each box, have students wipe their boards clean, and draw four new boxes.

Continue this idea in the remaining boxes. Twist letters. Stack letters. Make letters connect to each side of the box. Really force students have to leave their comfort zones. Once they have had some practice, have students overlap letters. Ask students to add new letters and try to overlap three and four letters in one box. When students are finished quickly with any one box challenge, invite them to create designs, images, and patterns inside their letters. All of these actions will help develop their letter designing ideas for graffiti-inspired work.

The last activity to do on the dry erase boards is to allow students to design a word using various strategies. Instead of four boxes, have students divide their surfaces into two halves by drawing one line. Give students five to ten minutes to design a word in each box. These words need to incorporate overlap, perspective, designs inside, or unusual letter design. Do not let students use tag letters simply because the artistic conventions applied to them are limited. Students can write tag letters within letters or words, but make sure students are focusing on the shape and form illusions that have been practiced.

Drawing is a common way to begin a Visual Arts class. Instead of drawing things we see, such as hands or fruit, why not have students practice drawing what they do not see but may be familiar with. By manipulating letters, students are practicing hand-eye coordination, developing confidence, and starting to find excitement in the act of drawing.

Letters have a certain low-risk association because they are used by students every day. By starting the year in graffiti-related study, students who have the most anxiety toward art can find success and purpose from the moment school begins. Graffiti-inspired study can be brief and simple, or it can be months of complex composition creation. Either way, starting off the school year by using graffiti to work on drawing and color theory is a dynamic way to enhance fundamental art skills and concepts.

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