Graduate School of Education - Design a Tag

University of Melbourne - Master of Education (Identity, Culture & the Arts)

“Should a child-centred art curriculum that emphasises personalised learning of students by actively engaging their environment and community exclude lessons on graffiti?”
Kan, K. H. (2001)

STUDIO PRACTICE SESSION

A tag is the most basic writing of an artist's name and the most common form of graffiti. Tagging is the act of drawing, painting, sticking or scratching a personal tag on a public surface, usually in one (or limited) colour. A graffiti writer's tag is a personalised signature. While a tag is usually rendered quickly, taggers often put a lot of time and thought into the lettering, styling and meaning behind their tag. Tagging is a controversial social, cultural, political and community practice, mainly characterised as vandalism. Despite this, there is significant social, cultural and political communication and community participation behind the design and practice of tagging.

Collaboration is a key component of social, cultural and community engagement, hence the group approach to this task. Pretend you are part of a graffiti crew and create a group tag. You will need paper and pens (a range of different nibs to experiment with is good, but not essential). Collaboratively design a tag that socially, culturally, political and aesthetically sums up a real or hypothetical community collective identity. The goal is to express a group identity in the tag. Or design a tag that challenges social and cultural norms within your (youth) community.


Notice:

1. The thin and thick pen strokes, the blending of symbols, shapes and letters and accentuated punctuation.
   

2. Also, notice the way a tagger often makes marks 'with a flourish'.
   

3. blar blar blar is a tagger from the Belgrave area. Tags are generally not as readable as this one. Taggers go to great lengths to make a tag that represents a coded signature, one that preserves their anonymity or requires deciphering. It is not known whether blar has unintentionally misspelt 'blah' or chosen to. Nonetheless, It is quite witty.
   

4. The triangle with legs is technically a tag. It still qualifies as a tag because it uses limited colours and is quick and easy to do. This particular tag pops up all over Belgrave and surrounds. While other taggers know who the artist is, the tagger is anonymous to the general community – and police!
   

5. Some taggers use big, round, fat letters, with or without outline and/or fill.
   

6. Taggers generally don't tag a well-regarded graffiti or street artist's work (e.g. 'Stampz' Kissing Snow White and Cinderella).
   
   

Disclaimer:
tbC supports and engages members (and young people in general) in legal graffiti practices. Today’s group learning activity is not glorifying or validating tagging. It is aimed at a higher education learning environment and will not necessarily fit within school classrooms. However, given appropriate context, it could be an interesting educational and engagement activity for grade 6 or secondary classes!