Those literary types sure are rebels. Or at least, that’s what we gather from the amount of bookish graffiti that peppers public walls from New York City to London to Yerevan. We published our first collection of literary graffiti around this time last year, but since it just keeps popping up, we figured we’d kick this year off with another sweep — after the jump, find 20 great examples of bookish branding, from the impossibly skillful to the sweetly childish. And do let us know if we missed the literary wall in your neighborhood in the comments!
Photo Credit: Karl Rahder
Jean-Paul Sartre, Yerevan, Armenia.
Photo Credit: Mirgun Akyavas, via Dangerous Minds
Charles Bukowski, Austin, TX.
Photo via A Picture of Politics
Lord Byron’s “She Walks In Beauty,” London.
Photo via Pra Ler
Pablo Neruda, Santiago, Chile.
Photo Credit: Tyler Merbler
David Foster Wallaces.
Photo Credit: Ben Sutherland
Maya Angelou.
Photo Credit: Emily Babb
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Photo Credit: sunniednk
Kurt Vonnegut.
Photo Credit: +-X÷
J.D. Salinger, Ann Arbor, MI.
Photo Credit: g2wl2e
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Photo Credit: Jacob Siefring
Aldous Huxley, Montreal, Canada.
Photo Credit: Nade
Thomas Pynchon, NYC.
Photo Credit: Jacob Siefring
Charles Bukowskis, Montreal.
Photo Credit: Abode of Chaos
Ernest Hemingway’s eyes.
Photo Credit: Graffiti-Opatija
James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov.
Photo Credit: Eyes+Ears
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Frankfurt.
Photo Credit: Jean Jacques Terreur
Friedrich Nietzsche.
Photo Credit: majesticmythicalbeast
George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Photo Credit: Abode of Chaos
J.G. Ballard, St Romain, Rhone-Alpes, France.
Photo Credit: LGagnon
The mural at Brattle Book Shop, Boston, MA.