One of my favourite things to ask graffiti artists and graffiti writers when i meet them,
if they so choose to tell me what they tag, is, "oh, how'd you get your tag name?" It's one of
my favourite things to ask them because 50% of the time there's a really good story to go with
how a graffiti writer got their tag and, I mean, the other 50% there's not really any good story
to go with it. And i think that's because of the differences in how graffiti writers choose their
names. And today i'd like to go over the three main ways that i have personally seen graffiti
writers choose names, and how i believe probably most graffiti artists and writers
choose a tag to write. And, while we're at it, i'd love to know how each and every one of you
got your graffiti tag, maybe in a comment! I love reading all the unique stories and hearing
them from different writers, so I would love to hear that! If you leave a comment about that,
i'll definitely read it, give you some love for that, and all that jazz. So i'm gonna go over,
as I said, the three main ways i see writers commonly choose a graffiti name, as well as how i
chose my graffiti tag. And hopefully this will help some of the newer writers who are sort of
looking for a name learn a couple ways that they can choose a name. And hopefully it'll
start a good conversation between some of the intermediate writers and newer writers about how
they chose their names; the longer term writers that is. And later in the video too actually, i
do want to talk about the shirt that I'm wearing. More information on that later. Let's get to it.
So, the first way i see people choosing a graffiti name is the one that really results in pretty much
no good story to go with it at all. And that's pretty much also the way that i ended up choosing
my graffiti tag, long ago. So i'll tell you what this way is and then i'll also tell you
how i came to write Sciz and Scez, and sort of the progression that there was up to when i
started writing those names. And that first way is basically writers just choosing letters that they
like. So often when i'll ask a writer, "oh how'd you get that name," then this is uh when they say,
"ah, you know, i just sort of chose letters I liked. i liked how this went," and they get into
these explanations about things. They'll say, "i liked how this flowed, i liked how these looked
together," and that's the reason i believe this method is actually very underrated for choosing a
name! You do have the freedom with this method to actually choose sequences of letters in a sequence
that naturally works well together, so that you can have a bit more of an easy time making letters
flow in a piece, a throw up, or even a tag. Some letter combinations help you manage negative space
easier and things like that. Not that you can't do that with any letter combination,
but some combinations of letters simply make that more natural and easy, which is a big plus,
especially if you're a newer writer. And i'll give you an example of that here. Let me just pull out
my Photoshop. So, i have this piece pulled up on screen here. Let me just enlarge that for you.
And this is a Sciz piece that I made. It might be on my instagram already;
it's not actually finished in this picture and i haven't actually finished it yet, so maybe it
won't be on my instagram when this video goes out. But i wanted to explain a little bit how the name
i use sort of promotes a little bit of an easier structure to work with in pieces specifically. So,
what i mean by that is, here if you just let me grab a paintbrush... so with the letters s
c i and z, number one uh s and z are perfect because you can see here, that's the s and
the z. Basically an s and z are mirrors of each other, and when you have something on each end
that is sort of symmetrical, it promotes exactly that. It promotes symmetry. So, you can see here,
i've made these elements both sort of uh the bottom part of the z and the bottom part of the
s - this is horrible drawing, i'm drawing with a track pad here - so they both promote flow towards
the middle of the piece. I made these elements in here of negative space the same. And basically
because i have an s and z i'm able to sort of flip them and have an easier time making pieces
symmetrical. Something else nice usually about an s beside a c is that the bottom part of an s that
is curved like this, it usually flows very nicely with the parts of c's that are curved like this.
And that's exactly what sort of happened here of course. I tried to do that a little bit, but you
have this continuing on over even into here and curving down there. And of course with the I,
I made a little - i feel like the letter i is sort of, because it has the sticks,
it's a little bit more dynamic and you can have an easier time doing that sort of thing as well. And
you know what? I'll also show you a tag that was in my uh previous video, it's a chrome comparison.
It compares a bunch of chrome formulae on the market. You can check that out in the corner where
the cards are. But one of the tags that someone asked me to tag up was Left, in that video and
i just think it's such a good tag that i wanted to point out exactly how this tag makes it a little
bit easier to promote flow within a tag even or a piece. So you can see here Left, the L there,
we're gonna count these: one two three four five six and seven; we have seven horizontal lines
there that all naturally go the same way without really making any effort to do so. So, that's a
very easy uh tag to do that with. Similarly, (and i'll move on in a sec, don't worry)
um you have these horizontal lines: the L, E, the F and the T um all those are vertical lines,
sorry all those vertical lines, make it very easy to just have a naturally spaced tag, or piece,
or throw up. And i thought Left was a great name to tag because of that. And obviously you can make
any group of letters look good together. Don't think i'm saying anything to the contrary of that!
But, what i am saying is that some combinations of letters make that a little easier to do,
with a bit less effort. So maybe some combinations of letters that you think sound cool together
might be worth working with a little bit to see if you like them as your tag name. But the tag
"Left," as we just saw, is actually a good example of the second way people choose a graffiti name in
some cases. And that way is choosing a real word but one that already has a sequence of letters
that works well together. I'm not sure if that's how Left here in particular chose his name, or her
name, but that is how some people choose their name. And, basically, that can result in having
an awesome tag like Left! And that's actually sort of how i got my first name that I wrote,
which i'm sure almost none of you, if any of you, at all know; the first name that I wrote. And that
name was actually Spaz. The first name i wrote was Spaz. At the time when i was like 10, i thought
that sounded cool, and i thought the letters in it looked cool. And although i didn't really
understand, at that time, artistic concepts and things like that, i now understand probably why i
thought those letters looked cool together. So let me just go into Photoshop again here for a second,
to show you why the name Spaz probably looked good to me. This is why i think it would be a good name
to write now, if anyone wants to use that as a tag! The reason i probably thought that these
letters looked really nice together was simply because of some of the same stuff we saw before.
The s here, you can see, same thing, very symmetrical with this Z, just like Sciz and
Scez. But something else nice about Spaz is that there is, in this area, you know, the nice bit
of negative space that happens to sort of match up in size with the negative space in the A. And also
these three sort of sticks at the bottom, the two of the A and the one of the P are a nice
easy way to make a piece nice and vertical, if you're trying to do something like that. And
this part of the A can be shoved over in here. That's the worst arrow ever! And it'll sort of
handle this bit of negative space. It's easy to work with is my point. So, that's probably why
i liked that when i was a kid. And after i wrote Spaz, and don't worry i'll get to the third way
people choose their name in a second, but just for anyone who was wondering, after i wrote Spaz,
i thought "Scism" sounded cool, but i spelt it s-c-i-z-m, without the h. Nowadays, i would leave
the h in if that's what i was writing. That's sort of a nice letter to work with sometimes.
But i wrote Scism and then i shortened it to Sciz. And nowadays i switch between Sciz and Scez every
other sketch because an e is a nice letter to work with and I? Sometimes. So for anyone who is
wondering, that's how i got my name. Like I said, no cool story whatsoever. But the third way that
i hear a lot of writers get their graffiti tag or their name is almost to be given it by a graffiti
mentor or by a friend or something like that. And that's a very situational way to get a name, so
that's why so many good stories tend to come with those names, and why i love to ask that question
to writers I meet. And what i mean by 'given a name by someone' like that is sort of - usually
the story goes something like, "oh me and my friends were screwing around and this happened and
someone called me this or something and the name stuck." Essentially, i'm describing a glorified
version of a nickname basically! But that really is how a lot of people get their names, and it's
very nice to have like a word that you do think represents you well. And this method usually does
sort of result in that. And, a bonus sort of way that i'm shoving in with this third way (i don't
really want to make it a fourth because it's sort of the same thing) is identifying with like a word
that you like, or something like that. And that's nice to do because a lot of words are just nice to
identify with. There's things that you positively associate with, or would want to be like. For
example, i don't know how any of these writers got their names, but Serius, i really love that name;
that's an awesome name to write! Another one is Looter; that's a really cool name. Giant; i love
Giant because you know his name is like - he he writes these Giant throw ups and the g is just so
sizable in them and, i don't know, that's just my opinion. One of my very favourites is Rime,
Msk obviously. It's like a crossover between graffiti, but it's also identifies with at
least two of the other elements of hip-hop which is really cool. I don't know. I just like the
name Rime. But that brings me to one of my most important points of this video. And that is just,
names that you can't write. Generally, the only names that are like in consensus to be off-limits
are names of writers who are really really big already and super well-known and famous. So
obviously like JA; don't write that. Even more like people who are just famous for pieces and
stuff like maybe Berst GBAK; you probably wouldn't want to write that. And then, lastly, names you
wouldn't want to write would also include names of writers who are prominent and have
passed away. But, like i said earlier, i'd love to hear how any of you guys got your graffiti names,
whether there's a cool story to go with it or not! If there isn't, hey, it'll just make me
feel better about how lame the way i got my name was! I have more top three and top five videos
in a playlist if you do want to check them out. It's one of the most popular series here on the
channel, so we keep making more of the videos. And as long as you guys keep loving them, i'll keep
making them, so let me know if you do! But wait! The first link in the description is a link to an
unlisted video that you might want to check out. It explains a bit more about this shirt. I'll
give you some context in that video. If you do want to click that link, it's an unlisted video,
so the only way to get to that video is through the link in the description. So, if you really
want to be a part of like the exclusive few to see that video, and know about how you can get
some graffiti shirts for yourself, check that link in the description! I hope to see you in
another top 5 video or something like that very soon. Check them out! Until my next one, peace!