Street Art in Advertisements

A cool piece of art that can be seen off of Via dell'Indipendenza here in Bologna. It was applied using wheat paste, which is the process that I based my own street-art project on. Using any particular kind of starch, even flour or rice and water, you get.... glue! With just a few layers, any piece can stick to the chosen surface. Pieces of art can cover just one small area, such as this one, or entire walls. The choice is yours, try it! (And no, it's not illegal, no criminals here) :)

 One of the coolest uses of street art and design that I've seen yet in Bologna! This little store called "Pekora Nera" is the first one that has a street-art related logo on the inside of their shop. 

The world's greatest door handle, and something that favors design over function!! Who ever said we had to be practical?! Some of the stores in Bologna end up being the most artistic and creative places in the city. What's new and inventive often attracts attention, and it's interesting to see how retail, art, design, and consumption can all interrelate.

The hand drawn self portrait of a Maori chief's tattoos as an advertisement for a local tattoo parlor! I actually studied body-art and decoration at UCSC. Seeing a familiar and such unusual image 5,000 miles away from home is amazing!

Example #2! The exact same design in a different tattoo parlor of Bologna. It's exciting to see how something that was once so diverse and even frightening can be turned into an advertisement for local shops. What was once done out of morbid curiosity is now a new means of creativity and self expression.

Below are several examples of fliers for local bands, events, and films. While picking up at least a dozen of these every week around the city, I realized that I enjoyed looking at them more than actually reading them. As the fliers are used to catch someone's attention quickly, most of them happen to be amazing little pieces of art all on their own. Whether with catchy graphics, hand drawn images, or new patterns, they can prove to be just influential as something more permanent on the street. After all, most of the street art that is created isn't meant to last forever, that's the beauty of the entire process. There will always be more creativity, more artists, and more spaces to cover. Why not start with the art that we actually get to handle every day? The fliers also proved useful in my eco- fashion project, for after photographing those which I liked most, they were then used to make an environmentally friendly jewelery collection. Pretty cool, huhhh?? :)