Graff Symbols

[Vowel.1]

yo i searched and couldnt find anythin about dis. Just tryin to get a few thing straight. since graff as we know it started about 40 years ago, alot has change and meanings to things have changed even though we still use them.

Im walking around and im seein new kids on the block throwin up Crowns and shit on they tags even though they are toy. i want to find out where some of this other stuff orginated, and what it means, even if it dosnt have anything to do with that or mean anything today. an im not counting 'gang' symbols as part of this...

Crown = King
Halo/Circle = ?
Arrows pointing directions = ?
Question marks = ?
Star-like shit = ?
Comas(''), (,,) and (...) = ?


and ecetera. Fill em in and add others if you

[MoNkEy]

all they are, are things that people use for there handstyle. Most of them dont mean anything except the crown.

[Krylon bomber]

yeah they don't really mean any thing they just make the tag look better.

[Vowel.1]

na ive heard people tell me that a lotta that shit is left over from a time when graffiti was starting to turn into writing, but gangs were still doing big platform style tags out in places like philly....most of that shit dosnt mean probably, but what about Halos then?

[Vowel.1]

sometimes as people evolve they change their crown/halo...

|
| |
O what about that thing?

or just | | |

its like a crown, but it aint. this thread will probably proove to be bullshit haha

[Krylon bomber]

it don't mean nothing it just to make your tag better like arrows or quotes.

[Gara]

Most of the images you see are purely for detail but some have meanings:

Crowns - king (professional, or widely known graffer that has earned a tremendouse ammount of respect and has aquired imense skill)

Arrows - used mostly for style and look but sometimes used to show direction of flow in a tag or peice that flows i.e. all the arrows pointing to the righ and the image flowing that way.

Halo / Circe - this can symbolise alot holyness in the sense of god or holyness in the sense of pure skill, i have seen some circles that represent eternal (the circle never ends) therfor the person will never be forgotten - but mostly just for detail.

Question marks - depends what it is before or after upside down ? before and right side up ? obviously spanish origins, ive seen some that say the name then burn this? as in do better than this, again mostly detail.

Star like shit - gotta know more about this to be certain but prolly jsut detail unless its in the background then prolly representing the night sky.

Comas(''), (,,) and (...) - okay thats extremely vague but often people put " before and after their tag to show that it is their name ,, no clue never seen that and ive seen alot of tags / bombs, ... often just put after the name no idea why prolly no reason detail most likly.

"ONE" - if you see one after a tag or peice or bomb it means that they are the first or only person to have the name that they do. although this isnt always true because ive seen a new graffer whos name was "fear" write one after his bomb .... obviously not the first with that name.

sorry thats about all i know im sure there are a bunch more

[Krylon bomber]

pretty good.

[Hack.]

this is my favorite graff symbol


















http://theindependentvoice.tripod.com/theindependentvoice/george-bush-tells-america-fuck-you.jpg
still means what it always has

[AMAZ tbscrew]

um dosnt the halo mean youv hit an overpass or highway?

[MoNkEy]

no thats just gay

[scOpeOne]

Originally posted by Vowel.1@Nov 7 2005, 05:11 PM
na ive heard people tell me that a lotta that shit is left over from a time when graffiti was starting to turn into writing, but gangs were still doing big platform style tags out in places like philly....most of that shit dosnt mean probably, but what about Halos then?
NO.... there just to add style

[Krylon bomber]

Originally posted by AMAZ tbscrew@Nov 7 2005, 05:52 PM
um dosnt the halo mean youv hit an overpass or highway?
i don't think so but that is a good guess.

[screw_loose]

it's et cetera. not ecetera.

[Mekas]

i just use the long ass arrows to cover more space.
arrow = more space
more space = more $$ in damage
get it?

[ow1]

stay high 149 had a halo didnt he ??? jw

[Krylon bomber]

Originally posted by Mekas@Nov 7 2005, 06:28 PM
i just use the long ass arrows to cover more space.
arrow = more space
more space = more $$ in damage
get it?
word!

[Jump.-->]

,, In German you put the end quotes down low like that. Maybe that's what you've seen?

Arrows---> I use em but only if it means something to me. When I was still deciding on my name I had one that was V/NJ which was short for my hometown and the arrow pointing to the right was directions to it (east) Right now I put a single up arrow because my name is /\ Jump. (v.)

[jape-the-nape]

i usualy use !? at the end of most tags coz i used to be well known for jape witch sucked(lots of people knew me in person as being jape) so there was a few cases on bus's were id see like people from my old schools see a jape tag on the bus n id hear them say"JAPE!?" so ye..but most symbols dont mean shit and its a bunch of crap i use to make my stuff look beter hiding my weak letters

[_Sic_]

some faggot did a ugly as throw up with a fucking crown, goes to show crown doesn't mean nothing these days

[VirginiaSlim]

STYLE....CLOSE

[vegimite on toast]

All that stuff doesn't have deep meanings. Writers who actually have the right to use a crown generally don't anyway, ussually reserved for toys who thinks it looks cool.

[Kronone]

this threds fucked...lol...ive never had that deep of a thought before as to why ppl add the symbols, haha, to tell you the truth i never really cared...i think its all personal prefferences to tell you the truth, kuz honestly im sure ppl do it for looks not meaning. aka style...

[i nuk all night]

Originally posted by ow1@Nov 7 2005, 06:32 PM
stay high 149 had a halo didnt he ??? jw
yeah, he did have a halo. thats what i was thinking at first too. he was probably the first to ever use a halo.

[Zee!]

Sometimes people drop things like $ as the "hole" in a letter. Like I've seen it on Skam bombs, in the "a". Should that be sysbolic of something, or just detail.

[-=AgA=-TrAnCe]

userally just fr addons etc. domr people use them for useral properases.

[gaft42]

arrows also close you tag so toys dont add on their own shit to grab your fame

[slick dick willy]

most of the symbols first appeared to differ from other writers
during the early years of hitting up in New York, cause everyones tag was
the same without nothing new, than someone came and added
symbols, and got recognition.

$=hustler, likes money, or important factor in their life.

Halo= just out to bomb without any other bad intent or criminal activity,

Arrow= to take space from other writers

Crown= a writer to obtain a crown, has to be crowned by another
skilled and respected writer, who has been king.

[antirobot46]

dat sounds closer to da truth

[that_guy]

ok there's not supposed to be like rigid definitions to these things, an "abstract" symbol is meant to be an abstract symbol and if you dont know you probably werent meant to. you were meant to guess, or deduce what these things mean. the magic of the stuff is in it's interpretation. and like come on its usually not very difficult stuff. -------->=the direction it points, $=dollars, halos are associated with angels, spirals...well just think about spirals... ya know? this stuff doesnt need to be explained

....but yea its usually nothing

[sars_mask]

sometime, but not always, you will see an ! (exclamation point) after a tag. I heard this orginated to show the viewer that you mean buisness. Iv also heard its an ancient symbol to give respects to the writers who have used emphasis in the past.



HA!, its mostly just flair, fools been down with style for ages.

[vergin ass rescue team]

im love you defffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff lol

[Vowel.1]

Originally posted by i nuk all night+Nov 8 2005, 09:58 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (i nuk all night @ Nov 8 2005, 09:58 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by ow1@Nov 7 2005, 06:32 PM
stay high 149 had a halo didnt he ??? jw
yeah, he did have a halo. thats what i was thinking at first too. he was probably the first to ever use a halo. [/b]

<!--QuoteBegin-ow1@Nov 7 2005, 06:32 PM
stay high 149 had a halo didnt he ??? jw
yeah, he did have a halo. thats what i was thinking at first too. he was probably the first to ever use a halo.[/quote]


actually stay high 149 was not the first to do the halo or the saint tag, other writers were doin that before him. But he adopted the joint, and created it into his own signature cahrak as everyone knows him for it today


im not a toy or anything cuz i know what ONE and shit means, but i see all these mad toys throwin up crazy shit next to their name wonderin if they even know what the hell a Crown or Halo means. Ive always had my ow theories about that shit, but i never really thought about it a whole lot until like yesturday. I always use &#036;&#036; " ---&#62; and shit like that for space

peace

[Vowel.1]

i basically just do the comas, dollar signs and arrows and shit for looks. but not crowns

[bjet1425]

Yeah, I agree that it means nothing. To me it adds flavah to your handstyle. But call it what you will, I think it gets to a point where you add some sort of "extra" to your tag when you&#39;re out hitting up with the quickness automatically. I know for me it&#39;s automatic.

[DOK!]

Originally posted by slick dick willy@Nov 8 2005, 03:13 PM
Crown= a writer to obtain a crown, has to be crowned by another
skilled and respected writer, who has been king.
that prolly happens sometimes but graff isnt some absolute divine right ruler stuff,
when a writer puts up a crown, it usually means there a toy and they think that " oooh man dude that is a sick tag i just done, i never seen anything like that." so they put a crown up to think there the best writer in the city

[Tony]

Originally posted by Vowel.1@Nov 9 2005, 11:15 AM
im not a toy or anything cuz i know what ONE and shit means
knowing why people put "one" after thier tag doesnt make you not a toy.

[! PrOPeRr ! .aOk.cRu.]

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/5940/proper7ee.jpg
I do that thing. Usually alot nicer, i just wanted to post mines. I guess im not a
toy since i put a 2.
Yeah, I know "work on my handstyles" but ive made major improvement i use to write my name like the Proper on the bottom.

[tonedope]

yea i remember that, your hands got alot better

[slim76]

yo i been taggin wit markers for a long time and when i do a throw-up i sometimes put symbols and use diferent styles. i guess it depends on how ur feelin cuzz i always tag when i can ryte and i use symbols and shyt and differnt styles when i walk down the street. i guess some symbols could have a certain meanin to you as well for you to have a reason to incorperate them into your taggz.

[shineONE]

symbols are just to make your tag look better

[fannypack uprock]

i always put a nike swoosh next to mine to symbolize &#39;hotter than a sweatshop&#39;

[king-chaos]

i sometimes use da chinese symbol for fire it looks quite good

[VirginiaSlim]

no it doesnt

[Slaze]

ya mostly syle, i think the only thing any of us are right about is the crown.

i put quotes on mine for show and i put the greater than symbol on either side (just to brag a bit).

although some symbols do have meanings, like my name (slaze) is way to known by all my friends so i sign with "SLZ", just took the vowls out. but i takethe "L" and have my "S & Z" come off and cirlcle it halfway so it looks like a peace sign



( | )
( /|&#092; )
_&#092;L/_
well u get the idea take a peace sign and extend the legs into
s l and z throw arows pointed down off of the legs quote it add some greater than signs and put a witty saying by the arows (i normaly put rooted)

[Bruce_1nR]

Bump&#33;

AHAAHAHAHHA

I am...captain chaos&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

[BAPKEB]

I got a question.who agrees that symbols make eny tag better and who agrees that they just make them look dumb?

[Red3]

Depends, but what I&#39;ve seen, they get better mostly.

[sectra]

Originally posted by Vowel.1@Nov 7 2005, 05:04 PM
yo i searched and couldnt find anythin about dis. Just tryin to get a few thing straight. since graff as we know it started about 40 years ago, alot has change and meanings to things have changed even though we still use them.

Im walking around and im seein new kids on the block throwin up Crowns and shit on they tags even though they are toy. i want to find out where some of this other stuff orginated, and what it means, even if it dosnt have anything to do with that or mean anything today. an im not counting &#39;gang&#39; symbols as part of this...

Crown = King
Halo/Circle = ?
Arrows pointing directions = ?
Question marks = ?
Star-like shit = ?
Comas(&#39;&#39;), (,,) and (...) = ?


and ecetera. Fill em in and add others if you
crown&#39;s an easy one

halo/question marks im not sure...could just be a extra feature...i do it

arrows just look good when done right, but if there extensions of the whole, pointing down...means you holding it down. thats YOUR shit and no ones taking it from ya

stars, again...i use them, wether or not they have any real meaning, there just astically pleasing...and fun to write&#33;

quotes...unless your an idiot, your prolly writin&#39; a name OTHER than your birth name...ergo, its a moniker, a calling card, alias...whatever you wanna call it, quotes belong there respectivly simply because of the nature of your wurd...

if you wrote a paper about your graff status and name you wouldn&#39;t be like "Hi, my name is George (Menik) and i write graff"...you&#39;d be like "My name&#39;s George a.k.a. &#39;Menik&#39;."

haha...hope that makes sence...

course it get all fucked up once you hit gang territory...roman numerals can rep what street you claim/hood you from. get a suburban white kid to do that, and he&#39;ll say "II","X" stood for the &#39;eyes&#39; and nose on his character...not 22 and 5th street.

might help, might not...either way, when used right, they all look sick

[sectra]

Originally posted by Vowel.1@Nov 7 2005, 05:04 PM
yo i searched and couldnt find anythin about dis. Just tryin to get a few thing straight. since graff as we know it started about 40 years ago, alot has change and meanings to things have changed even though we still use them.

Im walking around and im seein new kids on the block throwin up Crowns and shit on they tags even though they are toy. i want to find out where some of this other stuff orginated, and what it means, even if it dosnt have anything to do with that or mean anything today. an im not counting &#39;gang&#39; symbols as part of this...

Crown = King
Halo/Circle = ?
Arrows pointing directions = ?
Question marks = ?
Star-like shit = ?
Comas(&#39;&#39;), (,,) and (...) = ?


and ecetera. Fill em in and add others if you
yeh, forgot about ONE/1/ONER

means he/she isn&#39;t graffin&#39; with a crew...solo writer

[3rdeye]

yeh, forgot about ONE/1/ONER

means he/she isn't graffin' with a crew...solo writer

thats not the case in my town, i have a crew here, OSM and there are at least 2 writers in that crew that use "1" / "One" eg. Morf One and Rek1. the whole crew is toy, but give em time, and a slap up the back of the head.
edit: i just saw STEN (i think thats it) with "oner" added while i was on a drive. he is in OSM as well, so that 3

[Speedy]

I wouldn't post in here but it's already bumped so what the hell. A writer around here named Jonas uses arrows to underline or put beside his tags. And 99% of the time, his arrows are pointing to another one of his tags or pieces. He uses them as like a heads up. And I heard somewhere that halos mean the writer is deceased or done writing. Which makes no sense, because if they were done writing how would they put the damn halo. So scratch that one. Just felt like sharing.

[RezOner..]

NO NO NO


a halo means its a heaven tag, or a heaven spot.

[Bazer]

it's all decoration.
get with it noobs.
pervert used to mean corrupt or not right, but now all it seems to mean to people is someone who makes everything sexual, in a bad way. >_>
meanings of things change over time.

[CUBANO]

Gangs use arrows that point in certain directions and other type shit as an underlying message to rival gangs...

[Scheme*119]

flipped crucifixes are always nice, no matter what your doing

[BLES1]

i use one of those " at the beginning and a * star at the end a bit curly ish...

i started off writing BLES but then added the one cause people told me my skills are worth having the name..

[Phat 2]

the thing in my sig is my tag
I do 3 quote marks instead of 2 on both sides of the tag. The the reason why 3 and not 2 is personal. they represent my beginnings in graff, my roots, what inspired me to start writing.
quotations to me hold the meaning that sectra talked about, coz it's not a real, birth name, it's an alias

someone mentioned that the halo means that ure just out to bomb and not doing any other damaging or hurtful activity. that sounds the most plausible explanation to me so far
I personally use the halo for my own reason and have my own meaning to it
my two ways of bombing are tagging and throwing.
so I gave each one of these a side, one's good, the other's evil :)
my tags have halos and sometimes these zig zags under them (the one u see in my sig but without the heart shape at the bottom) which makes them look like they're floating. so they're angels in a sense
and my throwies are spikey at the top and the letters have devil horns at both sides of the throwie with again, 3 drops at each side (which go back to being like the 3 quotes)

it's a whole complex that I kinda like to base my shit upon, the 2 extremes. day and night, male and female, good and evil, black and white, brains and brods, heaven and hell... blablabla

I put up the year also in my tags, hence the "10" there that's 2010
I also sometimes extend the zigzag that's under the tag to an arrow pointing downwards, and that means, also like sectra said, that I'm holdin shit down and that it's my own flow and no one can take it.
the heart shape I only use coz it looks nice... donno what it means though

I know it's a long ass post, and I'm sorry hehehe, but it goes to show that graff symbols don't have to have a fixed meaning, an arrow doesn't have to have ONE universal meaning. everyone could have his/her own meaning and interpretations to it, so in each writer's tag, an arrow has a different meaning.
and it also could mean nothing at all like a lot of people said... just for the aesthetic value of it

another reason I just thought about for the use of symbols is that they can sometimes be used to fix the balance of a tag
for example if u tagged and your tag seemed to have went upwards while ure writing. and noticed that the bottom right corner of ur tag looks kinda empty. and the tag would look like it's not really balanced right, so u'd add a star down there or something to even it out.

well... sorry for the long post, hope it was helpful :P

[CrustOner]

You have a shitty fucking tag then...

[Phat 2]

hater

[ShakeJunt]

you kidding?
that tag in his sig is fucking FIRE
tons of steez

[Solace_one]

ASTERIK: More than meets the eye, or I AM the fine print, You DIDN't MENTION ME, so here I am.

Stars are just tight. They mean power and complexity.

Quotes mean it's just a nickname.

The exclamation point means you want to have impact, like you're trying to DO something.

I always follow the flow carefully with my eye and put the arrows in the opposite direction, it looks clean and makes---almost FORCES your eye to return to the beginning.

an "..." or something similar means "more to come". Good explanations on you other guys' parts on other symbols.

" # " means ....generally nothing, sometimes just whatever.

[Phillip McDougall]

you kidding?
that tag in his sig is fucking FIRE
tons of steez

I hope you're joking.