I’m sure most of you have seen, or heard of the reverse graffiti that appeared on the streets of Leicester city centre on Thursday April 29th. The same design appeared in numerous different places; a figure doing a star jump with an X on their chest and the words ‘X marks the spot’.

The group who claimed responsibility are calling themselves ‘We Marked Leicester’ and their identities were revealed two days after the designs were discovered.

Bez Killeen brought participation workers from agencies such as Connexions, Leicester Children’s Council, Citizens’ Eye and Lighthouse Learning together as part of a campaign to get young people voting. On Saturday May 1st they revealed themselves by handing out flyers under the big screen on Humberstone Gate. The group asked first time voters to sign the stencil they used to spray the streets.

I researched reverse graffiti a while ago after hearing about it. It is a relatively new idea and is spreading across the country. Companies such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee have even used it for advertising campaigns.

You may have written ‘clean me’ on a dirty van before and reverse graffiti holds the same principle, removing dirt to write a message. However, if a graffiti artist wants to work on a large surface such as the pavement or a wall, simply attempting to write words or draw pictures with their finger will not have any effect on substantial dirt. This calls for a pressure washer or power hose and using a stencil for your design.

It is named reverse graffiti, as instead of putting material onto a surface to create a design, the design is created by dirt being blasted off the surface and the clean parts become the lines that form the artwork.

Also known as clean tagging, dust tagging or grime writing, it is environmentally friendly and does not, by law, count as defacing property, seeing as nobody technically ‘owns’ the dirt.

Well done to everyone who was involved in ‘We Marked Leicester’, who worked with the City Cleansing team to capture the imaginations of young people and first time voters.

Words by Claire Poynton-Smith