Rediscovered by the online press

Wow! Graffiti Archaeology has been making the rounds of some very cool blogs and online magazines lately. A couple of weeks ago, we were featured on Infosthetics, a wonderful site dedicated to information design. (I’ve been a fan of their site for years!) And then this week, we got hit by the trifecta of Drawn!, Laughing Squid, and Juxtapoz. I particularly like that last one, because they really get what we’re all about, and they ask their readers to participate in the project by submitting their own photos (which they can easily do over at our Flickr group.)

Welcome, everybody! Hope the site’s not too slow from all the traffic!

Graffiti Archaeology in Archaeology Magazine!

Graffiti Archaeology in Archaeology Magazine!
Originally uploaded by otherthings.

The July/August 2007 issue of Archaeology Magazine features a four-page article about Graffiti Archaeology. It’s by far the most thorough, in-depth article anyone has ever written about the project, with tons of images, and interviews with real archaeologists to get their take on it. I could not possibly be more proud.

June 15 Update: The article is now online. Enjoy!

Graffiti Archaeology in Getlein’s “Living With Art”

Graffiti Archaeology has been featured in an art history textbook: Living with Art, 8th Edition, by Mark Getlein. It’s a handsome book, thoughtfully written, and illustrated with color reproductions of hundreds of works of art.

Our project appears in the section on graphic design, as an example of good design bringing interesting information out of a cloud of data. Nearby in the same chapter are examples of work by Edward Tufte, Ben Fry, and Martin Wattenberg, as well as Paul Rand, Albrecht Durer and Toulouse-Lautrec—all artists who have been a very direct inspiration for me. What an honor to be listed alongside them!

Continue reading Graffiti Archaeology in Getlein’s “Living With Art”…

Grafarc in Font Magazine

The latest issue of Font Magazine is all about graffiti. The cover is by Daim, and inside is a thoughtful and nicely presented article about graffiti from a typographer’s perspective. The article also features a few layers from Graffiti Archaeology, courtesy of yours truly. As far as I know it’s not available in stores, but you can order a free copy directly from the fine folks at FontShop. Check it out!

GRAFARC in San Francisco Magazine

San Francisco magazine

Originally uploaded by otherthings.

The February 2006 issue of San Francisco magazine has a nice article about the San Francisco graffiti scene. The cover is a closeup of this piece by Apex. At the end of the article they give a little shout out to some SF-specific graffiti resources including Piece by Piece, Quality of Life, and our very own Graffiti Archaeology. Thanks fellas!

Ambidextrous Magazine

Graffiti Archaeology just got a nice writeup in Issue One of Ambidextrous Magazine, the journal of Stanford University’s new design school. They don’t have an online version yet, but the printed magazine is definitely worth checking out: it’s got a warm, hands-on feeling that’s refreshingly different from the usual fare. So go get yourself a hard copy! It’s currently on sale at Books Inc. in Mountain View, and no doubt coming soon to a bookstore near you. (Check the Ambidextrous home page for future updates.)

Update: The editors were kind enough to send me a PDF of the article to share with you. Click here to read the article.

large pure oh action!

Graffiti Archaeology just got a nice writeup in Spiegel Online. If you can’t read German, there’s always the Babelfish autotranslation: “If one decreases/goes back the years, one becomes a witness a large pure oh action.”

Update: we now have a much better translation, thanks to Gisela Rodenbeck (Eric’s mom!)

Continue reading large pure oh action!…

That’s a lot of traffic!

Our traffic hit another major spike as a result of the New York Times article. If you’ve tried to view the site today and got turned away, don’t worry, nothing has crashed. We just have a throttle on the bandwidth to keep the costs in line. We’re looking into ways to serve more data to you. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience!

Nice review in the New York Times

Sarah Boxer of the New York Times has written a very nice review of Graffiti Archaeology:

Digital ‘Antigraffiti’ Peels Away the Years.

I particularly appreciate Ms. Boxer’s honest critique of the design choices we made. When she references a “battle for the soul” of our site, she’s getting close to the truth. The underground imagery is no accident. The fact is that graffiti, as much as we may love to look at it, is still illegal. So the real battle is between my desire for openness and a very real need for obscurity. The challenge is to shed some light on the wonders of this underground scene without digging it up completely and destroying it.

Continue reading Nice review in the New York Times…

GRAFARC wins a Webby!

Wow. Graffiti Archaeology just won the Webby Award for 2005 in the Arts category. We are honored!