Casual Conversation with Graffiti Minded

Milan based collective Graffiti Minded has just released their print debut during the Unlock Fair, despite all challenges of the recent times. Enough of a reason for a brief chat to highlight their approach.

What does Graffiti Minded stand for?

In the big picture of the Graffiti Movement, Graffiti Minded is a definition that identifies those writers who carry a deep knowledge of Graff-history, a big stash of Graff-experience and basically genuinity and spontaneity enough that you can detect in every gesture or Graffiti production they drop. No matter what surface, which tool, or the overall psychophysical conditions. The result will always be fresh and unique, even more, if the piece is not perfectly balanced and technically sharp.
The people who we feature all have at least one thing in common – they are Graffiti Minded. They do what they do for the fun of doing it, with the consciousness of the whole Graffiti heritage on their shoulders. L’ art pour L’ art – in that sense, but translated to a streetlevel, haha. Once we realized that underlying unifying property, our project had a name to go by and Graffiti Minded was born.

Luckily, we know the guys behind the Usual clothing brand. Their whole entourage shares the same values and mindset as we do, so they quickly agreed to support and actively participated to design this first issue.

Since you tend to almost take an anachronistic step into the print market in these digital times, can you name any influences of printed matter that shaped your understanding of magazines and books?

We grew up smelling uncoated pages of Graffiti zines and books while pointing our noses towards the binding. Digital is nice, it is fast and it is worldwide but nothing is more honest than a printed piece of paper.
There are a few good projects out there who don’t give a s**t and still trust the print market. We have been inspired since day one by Incognito Magazine with their dry layout and essential selection of sprayers. More recently, we have been amused by the disruptive approach of Team Flight Mode, who helped and inspired the GM project to take place on the right wave. We appreciate to be featured on Spray Daily, as they are the number one Graffiti content digital platform in our perception.

Will you pursue any further projects or issues with Graffiti Minded?

For sure, Graffiti Minded will be printing more but also more digital projects will be released within the next months, so stay tuned!

Graffiti Minded issue #1 was released physically during the Unlock Fair in Modena. Online, there is a slim chance to cop the gem here, exclusively on Usual, a milan based upcoming underground clothing line, which we adore. Better be quick! All pictures shot by Toni Brugnoli.