OUGD102 - What If... Research

Once we devised our problem, we then began looking into the topic in more depth (all of which is posted on my design context blog). I looked at various definitions of 'graffiti' itself, the negative aspects - in order to prove the problem is a real problem and a range of articles in relation to graffiti.

These links can be found here:

General facts
General facts 2
Articles both for and against
Positive article

For the progress crit on friday, we created 3 presentation boards explaining firstly, our problem - that graffiti is not deemed socially acceptable; the evidence - consisting of pictures taken by the group, articles, statistics and a questionnaire and finally, what we intend to do:

From the questionnaire Yafet and Chris devised, it was noted that some people liked the idea of a legal graffiti wall where graffiti artists could freely express themselves without legal risk. This could then form an event which could be advertised by us through various promotional materials. However, there were various reasons against this - one being an article found by Kirsty where a legal wall was put in place in Britain and a tax payer defaced stating 'I paid my tax and all I got was this stupid wall'. Also, some graffiti artists said a legal graffiti wall defeated the object of graffiti itself - this came from both primary (questionnaire) and secondary research.

We then noticed a quote in one particular article where an artist said that 'Some people are never going to get their art shown in a gallery, so the only way of showing it is on a wall.' This is one motive why graffiti artists do what they do so we thought it was a great starting point for our project. We decided on advertising a public exhibition which showcased some of the 'best' graffiti from around Leeds. This puts a positive twist on graffiti and presents it as a socially acceptable art form.