Murals incorporating calligraphy and lettering are becoming more and more popular. Here are five of my favourite lettering based street artists chosen for their roles in pushing the boundaries or for their killer styles. I'm happy to say three are female which is pleasantly surprising in such a male dominant field!
GEMMA O'BRIEN
Gemma is a lettering artist and illustrator based in Sydney, Australia. However she is constantly travelling around the world to speak at design conferences and to work with major brands like Adobe, Oreo, Pentel and Volcom. Gemma's murals are often monochromatic but she doesn't tend to stick to the one lettering style, prefering to mix it up and show off her talent as she should!
GEORGIA HILL
Georgia is a lettering artist and illustrator on the rise, also hailing from Sydney, Australia. Her style is very distinct, choosing to only work in black and white, and usually only incorpoating sans serif caps and interesting textures. Georgia has just started painting murals outside of Australia in Tokyo and Bali and has recently become represented by H+ Creative Agency in the US.
LAKWENA
Lakwena is a lettering artist from London, United Kingdom. Her murals incorporating bright colours, black & white and metallic gold in bold geometric patterns are so fun and happy. She also chooses to stick to sans serif type and leaves the interest in the backgrounds. Lakwena has worked for many high profile clients including Nike, Adidas, Clinique, Converse and H&M.
NIELS 'SHOE' MEULMAN
Niels lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands and was the originator of the 'Calligraffiti' movement - a style combining gothic calligraphy and graffiti. Being just shy of 50 hasn't stopped Niels from being one of the most experimental lettering artists in the world. He is always painting with interesting tools including brooms and artifical plants. His letters are always made in one stroke using large instruments as opposed to filling in the letter forms.
POKRAS LAMPAS
Lastly we have Pokras Lampras, a Russian lettering artist, who in my opinion is creating some of the most interesting 'Calligraffiti' in the world... or should I say 'Calligrafuturism' which is his own version of Calligraffiti. At only 24 years of age Pokras is dominating with his big scale calligraphy compositions including the biggest calligraphy artwork in the world.