Crack & Shine Review

For all the people out there that do not know about this book – it is the first London Graffiti book to be brought out. For people in 2 minds whether to buy this book or not then we thought we’d review it…

When I first got my hands on this book the first impression is ‘nice, professional’, the cover is all black with nice silver crack and shine font, different from all the other graffiti books that have hit the streets over the years.

I first opened it and quickly flicked through the book like I do with so many other graffiti books, to see the calibre of the graffiti and what is featured. My gosh, I wasn’t let down. Very few books capture me to sit down and read, I instantly found myself stuck into a Neas DPM feature. I couldn’t even make it half way through the book without being drawn into the stories. That’s such a rare thing I decided ‘hang on, lets start from the beginning, this is gooooood’

First impressions were excellent, when opening the book you get a little introduction about graffiti in London which is always good for the none writing population. I then turned the page, and it begins… immediately faced with a feature from Teach DDS, it covers some great captions from Elk and Teach himself talking about the earlier days and of course some amazing flicks of tubes and DDS in action.

We then get to Elk PFB, this feature again is just great, Elk’s chosen some of his favourite shots from over the years and basically talks a little about the story behind them. Expect some legendary whole cars.

The Crack & Shine book continues to bring the magic throughout with pages from Diet, Fuel, Zomby, Drax, Sub, Neas, DTB, Sput, Fume, ATS, TPG, 10Foot, Vamp, Das, Hefner, ATG, Bozo, Cut and many many more.

For me the top features that got me were Bozo DDS, Neas DPM, Fume DDS, Grand, Teach and Elk. But you also get nice sections such as 10foot where there is a nice little quote from Ozone expressing his opinions on Artfags and Banksy.

There are a few amusing reads in this book from the likes of DTB and ATS. I won’t give anything away but worth checking those out.

Will Robson-Scott’s feature is definitely worth looking at too, he has photographed writers on missions, some absolutely rocking flicks from this guy in this book. You can’t fault the mans work.

The one thing I did notice about this book is, a few major heads are missing from this book but from what I’m aware of is they couldn’t be traced or didn’t want any part of the project so fair enough I suppose, it is just a shame they couldn’t even get a mention.

So to sum this book up, if you’re living in London or not, it’s well worth getting, on pictures alone this is jammed to the brim with some of the best panels and whole cars around. But this book is more than that, you get an insight to some of the best writers in this game. That in itself is why this book should be owned by all writers and graffiti lovers, this book is on par with some of the best graffiti books around in my opinion covering an excellent history of London and the Underground. For the writers just starting out – get this and read it until your eyes bleed!

“This book is a modern day version of the subway art book that our generation got inspiration”
Noir ATS

Buy this book and support the Crack & Shine team for future projects, they’ve done a great job on this book and I hope there is more to come…

You can buy this book directly from Crack & Shine or get yourself down to Chrome and Black in London

Tags: 10foot, atg, ats, book, book review, bozo, cosa, crack, crack & shine, crack and shine, cut, das, DDS, dodo, drax, dreph, dtb, elk, featured, fuel, fume, graff, graffiti, graffiti book review, grand, hefner, history, insides, london, london legends, mace, mr p, neas, noir, pic, prime, racking, review, revok, shine, siege 52, spray, sput, Steel, sub, teach, tpg, trains, tubes, vamp, will robson-scott, Zomby

• Digg
• Stumble it!
• Reddit

• Updates
• Battle Of Waterloo
• Not Guilty issue one