Black Books

Graffiti writers have a culture of sharing their skills with friends and aspiring writers. They use bound books to hone their style. An artist's book would be shared widely, and it might be passed through many hands before its returned to its rightful owner. Black Books or Piece Books (as they are also referred to), which were hardbound with clean white pages, were preferred but even lined composition notebooks or ring-bound loose-leaf paper would do. The practice of sharing techniques this way advanced the aesthetic of style writing and afforded an open-source codebook for it. These writers' books and tools show not only a diversity of style but also a wide variety of materials and media.