In New York, bands of urchin-artisans took up Cornbread’s style—stick letters, tags—and made it an art form. Graffiti now adorns ... Squirm admired the lettering. “The white—it pops ...

But all this ignores the fact that over the years, most graffiti artists develop and perfect their own lettering style. Even throw-ups and tags which to an untrained eye seem banal and meaningless ...