Q: Who is the artist responsible for the Toynbee Tiles?
A: Good Question!


The artist is believed to be a male working alone, based on the text of Tiles like this one and this one. Until recently, the only reasonable suspect was James Morasco and his obscure group the Minority Association. In the last few years, other theories have popped up. These are chronicled below.

When searching for the Toynbee Tile artist's identity, it is important to keep in mind that most Tile fans staunchly believe that there are two Tilers - the original, who is responsible for the "old-school" tiles (eg. #1, eg. #2,) and a copy-cat, who has been doing the "new-school" tiles (eg. #1, eg. #2.) The "new-school" Tiles started appearing circa 2002, right around when new "old-school" Tiles stopped popping up. The "new-school"ers are significantly smaller, approximately one-fifth of the size of the "old-school" Tiles; there are, however, several examples of large "new-school" Tiles that are more than twice the size of the original Tiles (eg. #3.) In addition to size difference, the "new-school" Tiles are placed closer to the sidewalk than the originals. They have a totally different artistic approach and style of font; also, most Tile fans consider the "new-school" rants to be a more exaggerated, insincere-sounding version of the same paranoia as the original Tile rants. It should be noted that if there is a different, "new-school" artist, (s)he has remained impressively true to the "old-school" vision and persistance, laying more Philadelphian Tiles than the original artist!

Okay, all that being said, here is all the information we have on all of the suspects and key players we're aware of:

SUSPECTS
James Morasco
The Minority Association
Unknown '80s 'Street Prophet'
Railroad Joe

WRITERS INVOLVED IN THE MYSTERY
Clark DeLeon
David Mamet
the Crimethinc ex-Workers' Collective

INFLUENCES ON THE TOYNBEE TILE ARTIST
Arnold J. Toynbee
Stanley Kubrick
Arthur C. Clarke

Needless to say, if you have ANY INFORMATION AT ALL on any of these people, or anything on the subject of the Toynbee Tiles, WRITE US!!!.