Wild style
In the writing culture, Wildstyle refers to a certain style of image, especially letter design, which has a particularly high degree of complexity.
Characteristic
With the Wildstyle, the letters of a piece are often supplemented by added elements such as arrows, circles, various brackets and other additions and shapes specially developed for this style, which make the overall picture appear more complex and lavish. In addition, the individual letters or sometimes the whole piece are often strongly curved and inclined in different directions, sometimes even rotated or mirrored. Letters and individual parts of them can also be pulled apart, stretched, compressed or otherwise deformed. In more recent wild styles, the individual letters of a piece sometimes even have different proportions to one another. In addition, they can be further alienated by unusual breaks and kinks, so that the original basic letter structure is often very difficult to recognize or even completely dissolved. The resulting u. a. The resulting, newly created connection options and transitions between the individual letters, some of which are also influenced by cursive script, further complicate the structure. In this way, the images can appear extremely intertwined.
There are no limits to your own imagination and the resulting ideas. However, this circumstance sometimes makes it impossible, even for experienced writers, to decipher the typefaces. Readability is not in the foreground, but only innovation and an exciting overall look. Despite all the playfulness and the possibilities of finding the shape, it is important that the lettering appears as harmonious and balanced as possible in its individual parts, i.e. the individual letters, as well as in its overall composition, but still dynamic and powerful. Bringing these principles into harmony places particularly high demands on the practicing writer in terms of creativity, genre-specific artistic understanding, as well as his technical skills in the implementation of his ideas. Because it is precisely their clean execution that is essential in order to create a successful work. Due to the many criteria to be mastered, the Wildstyle is also considered the “supreme discipline” of writing. As a result, this can only be carried out with appropriate quality by high-ranking and experienced writers in the scene, so-called kings , while fulfilling the demands placed on him . Because of the aforementioned circumstances, a successful wild style piece is respected by most other writers and often even viewed as a burner .
history
PHASE2 is considered to be the inventor of this style in New York in the early 1970s . He made the first crucial steps towards Wildstyle by adding arrows and circles to his letters. Before, only simple styles were common, e.g. B. the blockbuster reminiscent of western typography , also known as Broadway Elegant , and the softie style , also invented by PHASE2 , better known as the bubble style . Furthermore, DONDI should definitely be mentioned in connection with Wildstyle, as it was he who revised the Wildstyleletters (letters) and placed them in a completely new context. His descriptions and explanations on the margins of his sketches (sketches on paper) are particularly legendary. Wildstyle was picked up by several New York writers (including DERO , POEM and KASE2 ) and specially interpreted and continued.
In 1983 the film of the same name, Wild Style , was released, which deals with the writing and hip-hop culture and is now considered the classic among graffiti films. Due to its charisma, style writing has gained enormous popularity, especially in Europe, where this genre in turn received a lot of new impulses from a large number of culturally very different fans.
Nowadays, Wildstyle is very popular in the writing scene. The goal of many is to achieve the high level necessary for this style. However, there are also countercurrents, as some writers are of the opinion that through simple letter design and the resulting greater legibility, especially for those who are not in the scene, they can make their own name better known, especially in the general population, which corresponds more to the initial intention of graffiti writing, than to communicate within the scene using cryptically encrypted codes.
See also
Web links
- Subway Art 1984 - standard work on style writing by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant
- Wildstyle Gallery - Wildstyles on the graffiti platform Streetpins.com