Graffiti-TC Street artist designs cover of transit’s Ride Guide,
Latest Ride Guide to feature notable ‘cartoonish’ creatures of Toronto muralist Al Runt
The cover of the Toronto Transit Commission’s Ride Guide has undergone a Runt-naissance at the hands of one of the city’s best-known street artists.
Al Runt is the street artist behind some of Toronto’s most memorable walls, such as the mural outside Bloor West club Lee’s Palace. But his most recent work comes on a smaller scale: late last year, the TTC commissioned him to add his self-professed “cartoonish take on Art Deco” style to the latest edition of its pocketsized information pamphlet.
“It’s not your parents’ Ride Guide anymore,” Runt told the Star Tuesday. “It’s fun, interesting. It gives you the same information, but I don’t think it’s bland at all.”
Torontonians familiar with Runt’s murals — which can also be found brightening up Big Fat Burrito in Kensington Market and Electric Mud BBQ in Parkdale — will recognize his bold, colourful style in “Gears,” the artist’s take on riding the TTC. In the painting-turned-coverart, Runt’s signature “creatures” use the cogs in Toronto’s transit system — a subway, a streetcar, a bus — to get from point A to point B.
Runt’s murals are the reason the
“It’s not your parents’ Ride Guide anymore . . . It gives you the same information, but I don’t think it’s bland at all.” AL RUNT STREET ARTIST
TTC approached the artist, offering a $4,000 honorarium in exchange for rights to the piece so that the transit commission can sell reproductions of it on its website, said TTC spokesman Brad Ross.
“His art is very distinctive and unique. (The Ride Guide) cover is part of the TTC’s efforts to modernize and transform as a transit system and to reflect the city that we serve,” Ross said. Runt is the second local artist whose works have covered the guide: Jerry Waese’s “Getting There” came first. Differing art marks a change in information.
Ride Guides are available at any collector booth in any subway station in the city. A smaller version, the Ride Guide Lite, is available on streetcars and subways. Runt said he’d never noticed the guides before getting the job. He’s eager to see his version, which Ross said should be available almost immediately. “Everyone wants to know what kind of style I have,” Runt said. “Now I can say, ‘Go to every subway station.’ I couldn’t think of a better resume to have.”