Tags are one of the primary forms of

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

, along with throw-ups and pieces. The act of writing a tag is known as tagging. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti, originating in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the 1960s and 70s with artists such as

TAKI 183 TAKI 183 is the "tag" of a Greek-American graffitist who was active during the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City. The graffitist, whose given name is Demetrios, has never revealed his full name. Biography TAKI 183 was a graffiti tagge ...

and

Julio 204 JULIO 204 was a Puerto Rican resident of Inwood who wrote graffiti in his youth. He was not the first graffitist to write in New York City, even though he's usually credited as being the original New York City writer and the inspiration for Tak ...

. and are often thought of as the simplest form of graffiti art, prioritising legibility and flow and are usually the form of graffiti that most artists start off with. Tags are, perhaps due to their simplicity, more likely to be considered vandalism than other more elaborate graffiti styles.

Form

Often done in spray paint or markers, tags are established from throw-up and pieces by being 2D, often smaller in size, and thinner lines which are the result of speed necessity due to the often illegal nature of tagging. This necessity of speed has led to tags which are written in a single stroke called one-liners. While throw-ups and pieces may be formed from any word or even sentence, a tag functions similarly to a

signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

, as they are the graffiti artist's pseudonym (although rarely a personal name may be used) written in the unique style of the individual artist so that two artists with the same name would be distinguishable from one another, although an artist using a name of an existing artist in their locale or a "king" (a well-respected artist) is a

faux pas English words {{Short pages monitor