Do you like graffiti? Do you like calligraphy? You better! Niels "Shoe" Meulman is an internationally respected artist, designer, and art director and credited as one of the originators of the art of Calligraffiti. Although 'Shoe' has made it clear that "The term Calligraffiti isn’t new. If you google it you’ll find some interesting results besides my art. And yes, there are of course many other artists that are influenced by calligraphy and graffiti. Eric Haze, Jose Parla, Retna, The Boghe, to name a few.." Meulman started tagging way way back in 1979, by the tender age of 18 he was already a legend of the street art scene. Known as ‘Shoe’ within the graffiti community, his work has evolved into a business for lettering, perfecting his technique as an apprentice of the Dutch graphic design master, Anthon Beeke.
Meulman's spectacualr career has been varied to say the least. In the nineties Meulman ran his own design company, Caulfield & Tensing, before being snapped up by the advertising network BBDO. Since then he has worked as the Creative Director for MTV Networks, all the time freelancing in typographic design. Calligraffiti hit the urban art map in 2007 following a highly successful solo exhibition in Amsterdam, that included contributions from NY graffiti supremo Eric Haze. Meulman has also teamed up with international record label Rush Hour, to mount a Calligraffiti exhibition entitled 'Different Strokes'. His career continues on the up as his work is exhibited around the world.
Meulman’s designs and artwork are in the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He's also made powerful in-roads into the world of fashion and design with his signature shoe design for the British sports brand, Umbro, the rebranding of the Dutch television channel TMF, calligraphy for Bols Genever; the Christel Palace logo which received an award from the Art Directors Club New York, a line of luxury silk scarves for his own fashion label Unruly and of course his line of glossy Calligraffiti pieces.
As journalist and editor Adam Eeuwens (Rebecca Mendez Design, 34 magazine) explains in his introduction, calligraffiti is a ‘curious amalgam of an ancient, refined art form fused with the raw force of modern street art, the rhythm and regularity of Fraktur’s precise stroke combined with the perfect accidents of the vertical drip and splatter of the horizontal drop, a synthesis of opposites.’
If you like what you see you should really check out his book, there's a great review of it at Eye Blog but here are a few pics to get you warmed up!
You can buy the book (whilst stocks last) for just $19.77 at Amazon right now. Although if you fancy buying one of his limited edition scarves at Unruly.nl you'll receive a free signed copy!
Really well worked out site…. thumbs up
Thanks mate, really appreciate the support