Have you ever caught yourself trying to spot Easter Eggs or interpret artwork within a Pixar film? Well, in Pixar’s latest SparkShort, Loop, we were not only drawn to the meaningful story but by the colorful graffiti-style artwork featured in the scene where the duo enters the tunnel.
After numerous viewings, we started to notice familiar words popping out — so, we figured it could be fun to try and decode some of the artwork in Loop.
The graffiti-style artwork was created by Production Designer, Paul Abadilla. While there are several styles of graffiti artwork, we noticed three unique styles, Tag, Throw-up, and Wildstyle. Tagging is one of the easiest and simplest styles of graffiti, generally using one color with the artist’s name or identifier. The Throw-up style is a more complicated version of a tag, using two or more colors with bubble-style lettering. Now the Wildstyle artwork is an elaborate version of a Throw-up and is particularly hard to read, consisting of curves, arrows, etc.
Side Note — After we began to decode this incredible artwork, it reminded us how much we enjoy reading the ‘Art of’ books by Chronicle Books for Pixar films. Wouldn’t it be great to see a complete ‘Art of The Pixar SparkShorts’ book so everyone could dive deeper into all the unique artistic styling behind each short?
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
In the photos below, we have decoded some of the artwork — some with meanings and references and others we just plainly spotted the word. We do know that there are a few other hidden words, such as director Erica Milsom’s last name. While we have an idea where it is, we’re just not quite certain. Check out our list below and see if you can decode anything new as well.
- ERICA ’18 — You’ll notice on the left-hand side there is a nod to Loop director Erica Milsom. The date ’18 is for the year that Loop was created.
- SPARK — Written in two shades of blue, SPARK is a nod to the SparkShorts program that Loop is a part of.
- PRESTO — Written in orange and purple, many fans may first think of the Pixar short, Presto. Presto is actually the proprietary software developed and used in-house by Pixar in the animation of its features and short films.
- SUPER — Written in white, almost in a Blockbuster graffiti-style.
- POWER — Written red in a tag style, the word POWER can be seen next to SUPER. As our friend Melissa pointed out to us, Autism is often considered a super power since individuals with ASD experience the world differently than NT (neurotypical) people do.
- WHAT — Tagged in black behind Erica’s name, we noticed what appears to be the word ‘WHAT’.
- RESIST — (Shown below) Done in Abadilla’s stellar Wildstyle, RESIST features two shades of purple among a gold background.
While we have our guesses on the other artwork featured upon the tunnel, we would love to get your thoughts and hear what you see or decode. Be sure to share your thoughts on the artwork of Loop in the Pixar Post Forum or in the comments below.
Pixar Post – Julie & T.J.
