Graffitti Art - Is It Art or Is It Design?

Before discussing about the above issue, let's talk about how people define the term "graffitti" first.

Graffitti, according to wikipedia.com, is a art form created by scratching sharp objects or spraying paint into a surface.

Up to now, graffitti still be considerred as crime art because the graffittists make their works into public walls without permissions from authourities, or private walls without aggreements from the owners; then, letting to vandalism.

Moreover, it's quite hard for the graffittists to create their artworks legally due to some reasons:

• They need a large space to paint --> it's impossile for city's scenarios.
• They need to build thier own walls --> it costs lot of money.
• Most of graffittists are poor or unemployed or low-educated --> thier use of words is not properly.

So, it's time to go straight to the main issue here, Graffitti Art - Is It Art or Is It Design?

Well, for some reasons graffitti is art because:

• Not much people accept the viusal of graffitti.
• Mostly graffitti express the artist's personalization by drawing thier 'tag' (nickname) into the walls.
• Graffitti has a long-term development from the ancient Greek period till now.

However, graffitti is now becoming design because:

• The marketers use graffitti to approach the youth as a taget group.
• Graffitti is applied as a style to decoration, such as, fonts, notebook covers, wallpapers, etc.
• People use graffitti to communicate their concepts to audiences over advertising.
• Graffitti is not only on the walls, but also appear on a variety of media, like internet images, TV, printAds, etc.

To conclude, depending on which purpose of using graffitii, it could be art or design.

If a person makes a graffitti for his own personalities. That's art.
But if a person creates a graffitti to communicate an idea over many types of media. That's design.

So, what do you think?