Graffiti on Sleeves

Graffitihas become one of those mediums that is vastly over used when an individual wants to portray something as being “urban” or if they want to appeal to “youth”. To labour their massage further graffiti artists who conceal their identity are often used, Banksi being one of many. I hypothesis this is for one of two reasons, their graffiti is often in less than legal areas giving the illusion of a more gritty, sticking-it-to-the-man design, or due to the publics inability to put a face to a name, the artists can vastly increase their notoriety. As you have probably guessed by now, I am generally not a fan. That is not to say I don’t like graffiti, some of it is truly incredible. I don’t think it even has tohave a message. I saw a vibrant, grinning Cheshire cat hidden in a dark corner, during a dash to an overheated tube station that cheered me up tremendously. The trouble for me is when something is used so much it tends to loose its’ message.

Penguin have recently commissioned a range of graffiti artists to design the art for a selection of book covers. The artists are from all over the world and have vastly different styles. The reason Penguin gives for commissioning these covers is that the novels share the quality of speaking for their time, as does graffiti. This, in some cases, is hard to argue with. Graffiti does extend further than spray paint on a bus station, although unfortunately one or two of these covers do resemble such imagery.

The selection of covers shown, I feel, work well. As you can see the medium is not always spray paint, I think this is what makes this range far more successful than others I have seen.

The artists in order of appearance bellow are: ROA, Dain, Stephen Powers.