Because we care enough to burn friends… 12ozProphet proudly presents Also Known As v1
The 12ozPROPHET crew is back. We’re back because graffiti’s legacy is in danger, and because we’ve lurked in plain sight for far too long. While graffiti culture floats happily along knowing full well that it only shines in a struggle, graffiti ‘cool’ continues to contribute significantly to the foundation of today’s street culture industry. After a hiatus of several years, 12ozProphet is now back to stir things up in the name of the common good. Join us as we welcome a misrepresented movement back to relevance, and once again return it to the spotlight it deserves.
12ozPROPHET Magazine was launched in 1993 with the goal of raising the bar for the graffiti world and integrating it’s distinctiveness into the wider world of street culture and design. Though there were graffiti magazines before us, we presented the mayhem with an elegance and attention to detail never before seen. We were the first to package top notch graffiti, innovative design, exceptional printing and intelligent thought provoking text. We ran the most extensive interview that Barry McGee (Twist) has ever given. We wrote the first in-depth article about graffiti on the Internet, and also broke Os Gemeos and the Brazilian graffiti scene to the world. In other words, we set the pace. After 12ozPROPHET, graffiti magazines suddenly had to appeal to a wider world of culture whose interest we had piqued. Articles had to be intelligent and well researched, design had to be not simply expedient but artful, and print quality had to be superb. Graffiti was all of a sudden relevant.
Introducing Also Known As…
Graffiti and the hybrid cultures surrounding it all need a big kick in the ass, and there are few that are more qualified to do it than us. ALSO KNOWN AS will be a 190-page, full-color, perfect-bound, graffiti-obsessed, street culture bible released twice yearly. The focus will be nothing short of dear, dirty destruction; the glorious variety of fuck-you graffiti that offers no attempt to make friends. Absolutely every page will be pure unadulterated content, without room for advertisements or nonsense. We’re also supplementing this first release with several inserts including a kiss-cut sticker sheet, a special fold-out poster, vinyl die-cut stickers, and an exclusive pop-up diorama featuring a character retrospect by KAWS. Likewise, the print production orgy we’ve got planned for this volume includes alternating several sections of the book to one of a series of carefully selected specialty paper stocks, as well as produce each section with one of several spot colors and varnishes specifically chosen to highlight the content we’re showcasing. Though each volume of ALSO KNOWN AS will be limited to a total edition of 10,000, some copies will be more exclusive than others by way of a tiered release identifiable by one of three distinctly colored foil stamped covers, each individually inscribed with a unique edition number. Multiple paper stocks in the same publication? Several different spot colors? Various types of varnishes? Multiple covers that are individually numbered? You can’t do that without an entire print house at your beck and call. But we’ve got that covered. We’ve got a high-end printing press and bindery shop in our back pocket, and we’re ready to flip this completely unfair competitive advantage into the most elegantly filthy graffiti and street culture publication that the world has ever seen.
Our intention with ALSO KNOWN AS is to deliver an overwhelming sensory delight at first glance and new visual, tactile, and intellectual nuances on the hundredth. We look forward to making other publications look clumsy, and to once again reset the standards of the culture. With 12ozPROPHET, we provided the handbook for an entire generation of designers, marketers, apparel companies, publications, and hipsters to bite from, and bite they did. With ALSO KNOWN AS, we’ll drop another set of lessons on the crowd, which we’re sure will only grow larger. We’ll probably get bitten again, but as before we’ll pour another coffee, laugh as we add to the list of people that bit our ideas, and keep on innovating. (Don’t worry… We never trade, sell, or make public our biter file)
Graffiti”s influence on street culture has never been more powerful or precarious. Graffiti needs its most honest and authoritative voice back, its return to vigor and rigor in a context broad, bold, and inspiring. Nothing makes us happier than to re-energize the scene and to give deserving participants the opportunity to do the same in our pages. Our hunger for innovation is stronger than ever, and we now have vastly more resources at our disposal than ever before.
Put simply, we’re back because we care. Graffiti remains as relevant as ever, but it’s uncared for. With ALSO KNOWN AS the 12ozPROPHET crew lights a fire under a cool culture grown lazy.
At least now you know it’s coming.