The Birmingham style files idea was born from a need to log and record some of the best graffiti writers that Birmingham offers. Our aim is to produce a series of 100-page books/magazines (bookazine’s if you will), which will feature one Birmingham artist per issue. This being the second of that series. Prints dead, I hear you say. Well, you are reading this, so it is not as dead as you first thought, hey?. We certainly don’t think it is. Over the last 20 years, photographic equipment has gone from strength to strength, with some of the modern phones giving professional camera equipment a run for their money.
In this transfer of technology, things have moved towards a digital format. This is excellent in many respects, but unfortunately (and I think we are all guilty of this), it has meant that hard copies aren’t being produced as much as they once were. Whether phones have been lost, stolen, seized, or people simply haven’t got around to printing stuff off before moving on to a new phone, there’s a considerable amount of material at risk of being lost.
The one shining light which has been a huge saviour of images has been social media. “Graffiti” has never been so popular or accepted by the
mainstream as it has in these modern times. It has never been so good! Love it or hate it, if there were no social media, graffiti wouldn’t be as
easily accessible as it is today.
But there is an issue that we just can’t get past, and that’s not having a physical reference. Something that can be kept forever and looked at or traded, or passed on. Something that can’t run out of battery, something you don’t have to log in to look at, something you don’t have to have a
digital record logged or cookies accepted every time you look at it.
Something which you, the reader, can collect, keep, pass on or simply just enjoy. This, for us, is everything.
Welcome to the Birmingham SF.
We are delighted to bring you this, issue 2 of the Birmngham Style Files Featuring the awesome, MEFOE. We are also super happy and thankful to have Packs Protect and Loop onboard. MEFOE has been writing since the 80’s, he is a true B-Boy in every senese of the word, he is a HIP HOP DJ, a breakdancer and a...of course a graffiti writer.
