All about Street Art Cities: the App that geolocates Urban Art!

As you already know, I am crazy about Street Art! And if you still doubt and this is the first time you land on my blog, I recommend you to discover Street Art my walks in Paris, Brooklyn, Cannes or Cadaqués. I’m not going to hide that an App like Street Art Cities would have been of great use to me when I was walking through the rain while in searching Wonderful frescoes in Brooklyn! The App lists to date more than 21,485 works across 77 countries. In this article I am going to show you all the facets of this App with the positives and also the negatives!

How to discover beautiful Street Art right next to where you are?

First download the App that on the App Store or on Google Play. Then will you register; either with Facebook, or with an email and a password.

Once the App is open, you select the city where you are and the App shows you where the artworks are located in relation to your position; it takes all the simplicity of Google Maps. If you want to prepare a trip, you see what you can find as Street Art in other cities like New York, Berlin or other.

If you are passionate, you will certainly want to discover directly the works of the artists you like, such as Christian Guémy Alias ​​C215 in Paris. Nothing more simple, You click on the “Artists” icon at the left bottom; the list of artists in the city appears, you click on the artist of your choice and all the works that have been hunted are displayed. Then you click on the work of your choice and you will have all the information on it, as well as its location. If you want to see this work directly, click on “Navigate” and decide how to get there.

A little “plus” offered by the App is the “Events” tab; when I installed the App, this one was pretty empty. Today it starts to get content and you can discover all the Street Art events scheduled, and access either the Facebook page of the event one to participate.

How to become a street art hunter for Street Art Cities?

Nothing’s easier ; if you are a serious street art hunter and your Instagram account is full of murals and beautiful graffiti, just click on the “More” icon in the right bottom, then “Become a Hunter” and the App switches you to the publisher’s site to fill out the application form.

I did it and now I’m part of the street art hunter community of Street Art Cities! Obviously I was eager to upload on their website some photos I took in Paris to enrich the database for users. I chose to put my best pictures of artists like Christian Guémy, Jessy Doudou, Herakut, Seth, Borondo … For my part I avoided posting all my Invaders since this French artist already has a site who geolocates all his artworks.

So if you are a hunter (of Street Art of course); do not hesitate to participate, because the more we will be, the more the base will be rich for all of us and will allow us to discover new artists during our travels!

Verdict on the use of the App Street Art Cities as a user:

The interface is as easy to use as Google Maps; it does not row, does not crash; it is simple and efficient. Regarding the content, it is clear that even if the base has been enriched with 1,000 works in one month, it’s still a bit light and as you’ll see that some important cities are not covered yet. But as the App is growing thanks to the hunters, just a few more hunters will help it grow.

Verdict for the Street Art Hunter who participates in the adventure of Street Art Cities:

It is on this part that there are many improvements to be made; Honestly we would like to be able to post what we photograph directly via the App and without having to go through the website. On the other hand I noticed that some hunters posted not graffiti but scribbles without interest! Not nice for the user of the App. In my opinion the team of Street Art Cities should do some housework. Ditto some artists are in duplicate with their real names plus their nicks; which will not facilitate searches for users. The biggest improvement would be to integrate this administrator part to the App to facilitate the life of the hunters who enrich the base!

But who is behind Street Art Cities?

As I am curious by nature, and I found it very surprising that the App just released online already has a nice base of artworks and partnerships with renowned magazines such as Street Art 360, or the excellent Sold Magazine; I contacted them by email via their website.

Their Community Manager Tim Marschang responded immediately, and here is part of his answer: “We are a small team of Belgian and Dutch Street Art hunters and we started the adventure beginning of 2018. I am responsible for the community and until today, we are still very surprised by the impact of this project. “. He told me that at the beginning of the adventure they are the ones who are looking for Street Art hunters around the world: “I just went through the social networks and asked the right people if they wanted to become an ambassador for Street art Cities in their city … 90% of the people to whom I asked it says yes and joined us”.

Will Street Art Cities remain a free App?

Tim Marschang confirmed to me that the App was and would remain free: “We have invested a lot of time and some of our money to develop this. So of course, we are looking for some form of funding to continue. We even developed this premium feature called “City Insights”. With this, we hope to get funding and develop more practical features. We then focus on the artists, we work on artists’ pages and we try to find out if we can actually do something for the artists by helping them to get walls to express themselves and promote their works. “

As for their “Cities Insights” offer, it is aimed for municipalities / communities; Street Art can make a huge contribution to the tourism, promotion and cultural status of a city. Cities are investing more and more in street art festivals or muralism; with the data collected by the App; Street Art Cities can provide them with very important data on why and how visitors are attracted to Street Art and so much more. When you see how businesses, restaurants and other cultural activities have developed around the Buswhick Collective in Brooklyn, one can easily imagine that this feature could interest many cities that would like to develop their local economic activity thanks to Street Art.

My overall conclusion on Street Art Cities:

I am more than enthusiastic with this App and the contact with the team has been really nice! Of course it is necessary that their base of works increases a lot so that it has a major interest. I will post some of my hunting photos and try to contribute to its development. If you too are a hunter, do not hesitate to join the team of Street Art Hunters. See you soon for new Street Art walks in Paris.. And if you wand to discover more about Street Art, you can loose yourself in the Street Art Section of my blog on in my Instagram! You will love it for sure!