Graffiti glossary: buff, burner, throwie and the rest

New to the walls, or just tired of nodding along? Here's the vocabulary the scene actually uses — the same words you'll see all over Graffiti Spot.

The basics

• Writer — someone who paints graffiti. Not "artist" first; a writer.
• Tag — a writer's signature, done fast in one colour. The root of everything.
• Throwie (throw-up) — a quick two-colour piece, usually bubble letters. Fast to put up, quick to read.
• Piece (masterpiece) — a full, worked colour piece. Time, planning, skill.
• Burner — a piece so good it "burns" — the top of the craft.

The wall's life

• Buff — when a wall gets painted over or cleaned off (by the city, the owner, or another writer). "It got buffed."
• Capped / gone over — when someone paints over your work. There's an order to who can go over what.
• Fresh — up right now, recent.
• Hall of fame (HOF) — a wall or spot that's respected, often long-running and legal-ish, where the good stuff lives.

Around the scene

• Crew — a group of writers who paint together, share a tag/initials.
• Spot — a specific wall or location. On the map, every spot has a status.
• Jam — a sanctioned paint event; walls, paint-share, sometimes music.
• Cap — the nozzle on a spray can (fat cap, skinny cap) that controls the line. (Also the verb above — context tells you which.)
• All city — known across the whole city.

Reading a spot's status

On Graffiti Spot, a wall's legal status is one of legal, tolerated, fresh or hall of fame — always shown as a colour and a label. Its life status (alive, buffed, gone) is tracked separately, because a wall's story doesn't end when the paint does.

That's the short version. The rest you learn on the wall — open the map and start reading.