I just stumbled onto the work of Seb Lester, a type designer/illustrator from the UK. His stuff is pretty amazing, especially the typographic illustrations. I think there’s a huge similarity to graffiti here, at least in concept. He takes words or phrases and draws and decorates the letters, turning them into beautiful and ornate images. Although his style is pretty different, what he’s doing isn’t too far off from wildstyle pieces. Both essentially involve turning words into images.
There are a lot of great images on his website: http://www.seblester.co.uk/
Detail from one of Seb Lester's pieces, "Hellfire."
All City Orphan 