But usually when it’s right – it’s right. When it comes down to bubble letters, these tend to get a bit trickier, because in something like throw-ups, there aren’t technically any “bars” or “sticks” to determine where certain elements of the letters go, such as the holes of the letters. If it breaks out of nowhere, there better be a reason for it or it’ll just look sloppy.Īgain, this comes down to the know the rules before breaking them point as many writers who’ve been painting for a long time don’t give a fuck and just rock out whatever they feel is good, but that’s because they’ve had years of experience to perfect how we conceive letters in their purest form. If a line or bar is going in a certain direction, it generally has to stay in that direction in order to make sense. That is to say that aspects of these bars or sticks can have different weights and forms to them but one thing should always remain the same with these and that is consistency. However, the bars play an important factor in the way they’re created and done properly. There are more to letters than just the bars that create them. Take an ‘M’ for starters, you can look at it as a stiff block type letter with 4 big sticks that connect themselves in order to make the letter, or you can look at it as a dude who’s got big ass arms and legs that can sway from side to side or lean in different directions. Certain letters for example have far more motion to them than others. That isn’t to say they all have to be completely symmetrical or something like that, it’s just about having the flow of the word looking good. The same goes for graffiti as well, all types lettering, from tags to burners, all need a certain amount of balance. But generally what happens with typefaces that all tend to be dope to look at is one thing – balance. As stated said before, letter structure comes from that as we see everyday and generally in the words and letters we see different typefaces have different weights, serifs and sans serifs and other characteristics that makes a font ugly or beautiful. These days there’s a lot less of that due to the internet, but that’s not to say that everyone doesn’t have their own swagger. Now back in the day there used to be far more regional styles that people used to connect with such as Philly (Philadelphia) hand styles that are tall and thin, the cholo styles of the west coast that are far more calligraphic than others and other cities around the world had their own regional take. We also tend to recognize people through all aspects of their style, but let’s just say overall, and definitely when you’re first starting out, it’s going to be your tag people recognize the most. Now that’s not to say the other aspects of the craft won’t be as well. It’s your signature, it’s the staple of how people will know you. Tags are the most heavily used weapons in our artillery, because they’re fast, fun and generally get your name out there faster than any of the other ways to hip-hop spray your name. You’ve got to be able to bust out a nice tag before adding the extra frills to your letters. Well that’s exactly how this craft is as well. Tags are the core of the graffiti way, as they always say you’ve got to crawl before you can walk and then run and then go on a full on sprint. There are so many different letter techniques from tagging, to bombing to straight letters and burners. I think we can all agree one of the most crucial element to being a writer is having good letter structure and it’s furthermore one of the most integral parts of a writer’s development in order for them to not look toy. Letters have form, motion and a certain swagger to them that the average person doesn’t really know about or think about – but us graffiti artists sure as hell do. Once you get obsessed with the graffiti community and lifestyle, these end up being the most attractive thing to you in your life. This is why you’ll notice fonts and different sort of typefaces both interesting and implanted in graffiti all the damn time. We see letters in every aspect of our day to day lives from books, smartphones, advertising and grocery lists. This is why it’s necessary to talk about style and it’s correlation to letter structure with the audience in order help them push their abilities. Though as I’ve said before you’ve got to know the rules before you break them, but once you start breaking them, break the shit out of them! Letter structure is one of the pillars of success in graffiti, but almost more important is to have style and flavour. Now letter structure and style are things that are far more subjective than many of the other things we will be discussing in this graffiti tutorial.
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