Warping classical fonts into rich mural art, Peter Preffington (or: Pref) uses three-dimensional complexity to draw the eye to deceptively simple messages.

A veteran street artist, Pref has “always been interested in the idea of graffiti speaking to the general public,” and has “pushed and experimented with this idea of overlapping words, seeing how many I can fit into the space of one word, and then slowly boiling it down and simplifying this idea to become more legible.”

Some present as simple on the surface, but reveal other words (often related via a known phrase) upon inspection — “more,” for instance, lurking within the word “less.” a “smoke” and “mirrors” takes some time to decipher as well.

The works are designed to be figured out, but also use positive and negative space in creative ways, unfolding like a visual puzzle. In a way, this is both typical of tags, which can be hard to make out, but also a break from tradition in that they are crisp, clear and made to be understood.

By writing in a more comprehensible way, Pref aims to make his work more accessible to the public, opening up a wider audience to the appreciation of type-based graffiti art in shared spaces.

A turn of phrase meets art in this mural made to look like a face, with glass-framed eyes reflecting the world outside.

Graffiti interventionist Achilles likes to put art in context, using walls and spaces as backdrops for layered works that wouldn’t work quite the same way anywhere else.

Many of his site-specific works play with perspective and create visual surprises by tucking elements onto different surfaces to create reveals as the viewer approaches.

Compared to his complex works, his artist bio is short and to the point: “Achilles lives and creates in Athens, Greece. He loves street art, graffiti and painting. He works as a freelancer creating murals, portraits, paintings, illustrations etc.”

Together, Hari & Deepti (Deepti Nair and Harikrishnan Panicker) turn sets of two-dimensional cutouts into vivid and haunting three-dimensional dioramas, often set in shadowy fantasy spaces.

Despite the darkness of their subject matter, in ordinary lighting conditions there is almost nothing to be seen of these pieces. The work waits in the shadows, so to speak, popping out when you turn out the lights and turn on the LEDs inside each individual light box.

Loosely analogous to a book, perhaps, the story plays out in the space between the pages, each one individually flat but, together with illumination, adding up to something more than the sum of its parts.

While most of their works are relatively small, a recent project challenged them to build at a much bigger scale, creating an entirely monstrous (pun intended) New York cityscape (shown below).

From the artists: “Paper is brutal in its simplicity as a medium. It demands the attention of the artist while it provides the softness they need to mold it in to something beautiful. It is playful, light, colorless and colorful. It is minimal and intricate. It reflects light, creates depth and illusions in a way that it takes the artist through a journey with limitless possibilities.”