Niels Meulman (b. 1967) is an internationally known artist, graphic designer, and art director. Meulman began tagging as Shoe in 1979 and became a graffiti legend by the time he was 18.

In the eighties he met New York artists like Dondi, Rammellzee, Haze, Quik and Keith Haring. He then formed the Crime Time Kings with Bando from Paris and Mode2 from London. Together they gave a distinctive style to graffiti in Europe. In the nineties, he furthered his technique by apprenticing under the Dutch graphic design master Anthon Beeke. Shoe ran his own design company, Caulfield & Tensing, and was a partner in the advertising agency Unruly, which he later turned into a brand for silk scarves.

Shoe revolutionized the art of writing with Calligraffiti, an art form that fuses calligraphy and graffiti. He launched this movement in 2007 with a successful solo exhibition in Amsterdam. Since then, his Calligraffiti pieces (signed NSM) have been seen in various international exhibitions. In 2010 the book ‘Calligraffiti – the graphic art of Niels Shoe Meulman’ was launched in Berlin and Shoe has since been touring to talk about the book