Street Logos (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

Over the past decade, many graffiti artists have moved away from painting their signatures in the familiar wide-style lettering (a practice known as "tagging"). Instead, they leave—and make—their mark with pictograms that become personal trademarks. Thus, a Belgian artist known as Plug appends large, cartoon electric plugs to machines in public places, while Cha, an academy-trained painter, adorns the walls of Barcelona with Picasso-influenced cats. Manco's colorful survey of this D.I.Y. subculture spotlights some seventy artists working in the service of an impulse that is variously subversive, ironic, pop, celebratory, and dogmatic. In this medium, recognition is everything, and Manco's subjects are heavily influenced by the use of logos in advertising; the London artist Banksy terms his work "Brandalism." Exuberantly inventive, they enjoy responding to, and even altering, each other's work, to form what the New York-based artist Swoon calls a "community of actions."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Product Description

Subverted signs, spontaneous drawings, powerful monolithic symbols, and curious characters represent a worldwide outdoor gallery of free contemporary art.

Graffiti art is constantly changing. Fresh coats of paint and newly pasted posters appear overnight in cities across the world. New artists, new ideas, and new tactics displace faded images in a perpetual process of renewal and metamorphosis. From Los Angeles to Barcelona, Stockholm to Tokyo, Melbourne to Milan, wall spaces are a breeding ground for graphic and typographic forms as artists unleash their daily creations.

Current graffiti art is reflective of the world around it. Using new materials and techniques, its innovators are creating a language of forms and images infused with contemporary graphic design and illustration. Fluent in branding and graphic imagery, they have been replacing tags with more personal logos and shifting from typographic to iconographic forms of communication.

Street Logos is a worldwide celebration of these new developments in twenty-first-century graffiti, an essential sourcebook for all art and design professionals, and a delight to everyone excited by the vitality of the street. 423 color illustrations.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson; illustrated edition edition (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500284695
• ISBN-13: 978-0500284698
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #471,295 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Graffiti Grown Up, July 22, 2004

By	R. Gordon "renzntzman" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great book showcasing those who are on the cutting edge of graffiti art. This is not your typical "tags" graffiti. These folks are pushing the envelope, blurring the lines between cartooning, graffiti, and fine art. Visual artists, do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It's full of fresh ideas and talent that will make your head spin.

5.0 out of 5 stars grafitti, December 8, 2008

By	powerpantz "powerpantz" (chicago) - See all my reviews

A few years old and still one of the best street art books out there.

3.0 out of 5 stars street logos, October 5, 2008

By	dmarmiger "readAbook" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

this books alright i thought it was about street logos like the obey giant and actual logo like grafitti but not really just kinda quirky pieces here and there