{"id":109,"date":"2025-12-12T08:54:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T08:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inkingabroad.com\/blog\/?p=109"},"modified":"2025-12-12T08:54:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T08:54:47","slug":"what-street-art-teaches-us-about-visual-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inkingabroad.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/12\/what-street-art-teaches-us-about-visual-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"What street art teaches us about visual storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What if the most powerful lessons in visual storytelling were waiting for you on the streets of Florence, hidden in plain sight?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time I was in Florence, I didn\u2019t go looking for street art. I was just walking through the narrow streets, taking in all the sights and sounds of this fascinating city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I saw it. A cut-out paper print of a drawing of Dumbledore (of Harry Potter fame), but wearing a snorkelling mask, wheat-pasted over the top of some graffiti, signed Blub<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a very ‘un’-Renaissance image pasted on a very Renaissance-looking ancient wall. It was odd, and out of place. It was ‘illegal’ but it was more than just a furtive spraypainted tag: it invited curiosity rather than being a rude intrusion. And the more I walked around, the more and more street art like this I found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light” – A wheat-pasted printed artwork of Dumbledore by anonymous Florentine artist Blub<\/em>, who always adds goggles to his subjects<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a city that was already teaching me fantastic lessons about visual storytelling through traditional Renaissance art<\/em>, the city totally took me by surprise by showing me even more lessons to learn through this street art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visual storytelling pulls you in<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Street art \u2013\u00a0good<\/em> street art \u2013 doesn\u2019t ask politely for your time. It interrupts you. There’s always something about it that is just too damn interesting to ignore, and this interruption gave me an insight into how good visual storytelling works. Good visual stories don\u2019t shout; they pull<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we walk the streets of Florence during the Visual Storytelling Creative Retreat<\/a>, we\u2019re not hunting for ‘content’; we\u2019re practicing something far more valuable: noticing<\/em>. Not only noticing a piece of street art, but noticing how we notice<\/em>. We try to deconstruct that ‘pulling power’ of the various elements in any piece of street art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n