Graffiti and murals are both forms of art painted on walls, and they can involve many of the same tools and techniques. However, they are not the same thing. Graffiti is an art form built around lettering and writers’ chosen names, but it is also a subculture with a history closely connected to unauthorised painting. A mural, by contrast, is a large-scale wall painting usually designed for a specific location and created with permission.
The line between the two is not always clear. A graffiti artist can paint a mural, and a large graffiti piece can also be considered a mural.
What Is Graffiti?
At the heart of graffiti is the writer’s chosen name, or tag, and the process of developing it into a recognisable personal style. Graffiti can take the form of a quickly painted tag, a simple throw-up or a carefully planned large-scale piece. Letter structure, composition, colour, location and technical skill are all part of the work.
Graffiti is not simply an image painted on a wall. It is an international subculture with its own values, rules, hierarchies, history and ways of using urban space. Within graffiti culture, graffiti in its original sense often refers specifically to unauthorised work. The choice of location, visibility, risk and illegal nature of painting have been part of the culture from the beginning.
In everyday language, however, the word graffiti is often used for any letter-based artwork made with spray paint, whether it was created legally or illegally. This means the same term can refer both to illegal graffiti on a train and to a painting created in a supervised workshop.
What Is a Mural?
A mural is a large-scale painting created on a wall or another built surface. Murals can be found on apartment building façades, in underpasses, schools, commercial spaces and workplaces.
The subject of a mural can be almost anything: a realistic portrait, a landscape, an abstract composition, a graphic illustration or a work developed together with a local community. Unlike graffiti, murals are not defined by a particular subculture or by the use of lettering. The term primarily describes the format and scale of the artwork.
Murals are usually commissioned and created in collaboration with a property owner, city, company or other organisation. In addition to the artistic concept, the planning process must consider the condition and material of the wall, safety, access equipment and any permits required.
What Is the Difference Between Graffiti and a Mural?
The clearest difference lies in the starting point of the work. Graffiti usually focuses on lettering, a chosen name, the artist’s personal style and a connection to graffiti culture. A mural is more commonly based on an image, a story, the identity of a place or a theme agreed with the client.
Graffiti emerged as an independent and largely unauthorised form of urban culture. Murals, on the other hand, are usually planned in advance and created with permission. Permission alone does not determine the style of a work: graffiti can be painted on a legal wall, and an artist with a graffiti background can create a commissioned mural.
Street art is a broader term that includes both graffiti and murals. It can also cover stickers, posters, stencil art, mosaics and installations created in public spaces.
The History of Graffiti Culture in Helsinki
Influenced by New York, graffiti arrived in Helsinki in the 1980s. Music videos, films, hip-hop culture and images from abroad introduced a new form of painting to the city. Pasila, the Helsinki Metro lines and the railway network quickly became important parts of the local graffiti landscape.
The early history of graffiti in Helsinki was documented in Helsinki graffiti, edited by Anne Isomursu and Tuomas Jääskeläinen. Published in August 1998, it was the first Finnish-language photo book dedicated to graffiti. It presented Finnish graffiti from the artists’ perspective, covering the period from the early 1980s to 1998, and quickly became a cult classic within Finland’s graffiti culture. An expanded 25th-anniversary edition was published in 2023.
The original book was released in the same year that Helsinki launched its Stop töhryille anti-graffiti campaign. The zero-tolerance policy, which ran from 1998 to 2008, led to graffiti being removed quickly and to an extremely strict approach towards the culture as a whole. During this ten-year period, there were very few legal places to paint, and organising graffiti events and workshops also became more difficult.
After the zero-tolerance policy ended, legal graffiti walls began to appear in Helsinki. The wall at Suvilahti became the best known. Today, the city has several legal painting locations, and graffiti can also be seen in exhibitions, commissioned projects and urban culture events. At the same time, much of Helsinki’s graffiti is still created without permission. This contradiction keeps the debate alive: some see graffiti as an important art form and part of urban culture, while others see it primarily as a crime against property.
Graffiti is now also taught in supervised workshops. FunkOn organises hundreds of graffiti workshops each year, as well as regular street art activities for children and young people. In September 2026, FunkOn will also organise the Graffiti SM competition, bringing together different generations of Finnish graffiti artists.
See Helsinki’s legal graffiti walls
Explore FunkOn’s street art activities and graffiti workshops
Graffiti or a Mural for Your Space?
Graffiti is a good choice when the aim is to emphasise lettering, energy and an urban style. A mural works well when the starting point is a broader visual concept, a story, the identity of a place or brand visibility. In many cases, the most effective result combines elements of both.
FunkOn’s roots are in graffiti culture. We create both professional graffiti artworks and large-scale murals, helping each client find the right artist, style and production method for their space.
