Seattle and Raleigh-Durham marketing, graphic and brand design studio Design Kompany

UPDATE—March 2008:
More than a year after this field report, Design Kompany’s own Dipika Kohli makes her gallery debut by “tagging” a wall with sharpie markers, in a style very much inspired by street arts.

My trip to New York ostensibly was to “research and get inspired” by the art and design the megalopolis offers, so a little bit of report is in order. Here’s an annotated sampling of the pictures I took while ambling around the surprisingly balmy winter days in New York. Enjoy!

This was in Downtown. Not sure which street, but really a beautiful work, isn’t it? Tactile texture that blends well with the background (faded graffiti on a dirty garage door). Like the collage-like distortions and contrasts, too. I had missed my flight back home that day and was just killing time, but this discovery made it worthwhile.

Manhattan for the most part is dominated by advertisements and billboards. To see some good graffiti work, I had to go to Brooklyn. This one I found in Williamsburg–a great example of an old school tag.

Is this Banksy? It looks like it is to me, but I hadn’t seen this stencil before. Whoever’s done it, though, it’s nice work. Striking image, clever use of space.

This is taken at PS1, MoMA’s Queens branch that is far more avant-garde and anti-establishment (well, relatively speaking) than the Manhattan museum. This installment’s on the staircase of the gigantic building. Reminded me of Jim Pollock’s album art covers.

Getting anywhere in New York is so easy on the subway! I forgot which station I took this shot at, but I liked the humor of it.

This is a menu at this Japanese bar in St. Marks Place where I had a nice meal with friends. It’s called Kenka, but unless you can read Japanese, you won’t know that, for there’s absolutely nothing in English outside indicating the name of the place or that it is a restaurant. Despite (or, maybe because of) that, it’s chock full all the time with hip young NYU students. The cover pictured depicts a man’s heavily tatooed torso. Inside, you see lots of ukiyoe-inspired motifs. Very Rock and Roll, I say.

Some more graffiti. Some kind of collaboration going on here?

There seems to be a trend toward comic book/cartoon influences these days. I wonder if it has to do with the mainsream-ization of Japanese pop culture?

Big lips.

More big lips.

Stencil used for commercial purposes. This is a rather timid example, but I saw a big wall advertisement for the E! network show done graffiti-style in a few places.

Speaking of Japanese pop culture, Uniqlo, a low-cost fashion mega-chain from Japan, had just opened its first store Stateside in Soho, and you knew it anywhere you went in New York. They’d poured money into advertising. They handed out cute red-squared catalogues and published quite a nicely-designed free paper along with all the ads and billboards.

As I’ve mentioned, Manhattan was so full of commercialism that I felt I was shopping in a huge mall. Of course, it was Christmas sales time. I enjoyed checking out some of the window displays, too (and checking out the newest iPod at the new Apple Store…). Barneys had Andy Warhol-themed windows.

This one is from the Bergdorf Goodman store.

Good to see such a good installation of this great street-art movement in person, and it’s nice to see it still going strong. Such a simple concept, yet it never fails to make you smile. This was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I did miss the rain eventually, though. So this was a sign that I should go home to Seattle… That’s it! Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Stencil graffiti in Seattle Part II | Part I | Design Kompany teams up with stencil T-shirt artists