Style combination · Pairs well
ACT UP × Extinction Rebellion Graphics
A later movement that again reduces its cause to one emblem and a fixed set of slogans in heavy capitals; pair XR's flat colour grounds with ACT UP's facts in small print when a protest poster must both rally and inform.
Mix them and make something ACT UP Extinction Rebellion Graphics
01
What each style brings
Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics Extinction Rebellion Graphics
- Type from ACT UP
- Colour from Extinction Rebellion Graphics
- Form from Extinction Rebellion Graphics
- Composition from ACT UP
- Surface from Extinction Rebellion Graphics
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · ACT UP
Act
Anton; ACT UP used Gill Sans Bold Extra Condensed in white capitals reversed out of black for SILENCE=DEATH (1987), settled on after months in which the collective 'argued about issues, images and fonts' and Futura Extra Bold, Extra Bold Oblique and Extra Bold Condensed in black or white
Text · Extinction Rebellion Graphics
The visual identity of Extinction Rebellion, the climate movement founded in Stroud in 2018, built by its volunteer Art Group as a free kit anyone may print. Heavy, slightly wonky capitals based on old wood type (FUCXED) sit on flat grounds from a twelve-colour palette of brights and light tints, beside woodcut skulls, bees, butterflies, birds and flowers, signed with the XR logotype and often the circled-hourglass Extinction Symbol, attributed to the street artist ESP, who dates it to 2011. Blocks, screens and free downloads let crowds print their own flags, banners, placards and patches.
Oswald; Extinction Rebellion Graphics used FUCXED Caps and Condensed wood type
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Extinction Rebellion Graphics, with a counter-accent from ACT UP. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics Extinction Rebellion Graphics
-
#f7ee6aground · 36% -
#000000ink · 14% -
#c80082accent · 18% -
#c8102eaccent · 14% -
#14aa37accent · 10% -
#f06ea9accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f7ee6a;
--ink: #000000;
--accent-1: #c80082;
--accent-2: #c8102e;
--accent-3: #14aa37;
--accent-4: #f06ea9;
--font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Oswald", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics: These are the graphics of a movement of gay men, lesbians and people with AIDS who were burying their friends, and many of their makers and subjects are living or died of AIDS (Mark Simpson, who appears in Kissing Doesn't Kill, died in 1996; Oliver Johnston in 1990); HIV remains a global health issue and ACT UP is still active. The pink triangle recalls the homosexual prisoners of the Nazi camps and was turned to point up as 'a disavowal of victimhood' (in Finkelstein's account; the Henry Ford's history says the inversion began as a mistake that the collective kept): do not use it, the SILENCE=DEATH equation or the kissing couples as decoration, Pride merchandise or brand campaigns, since the style was made to turn advertising against corporate greed, and do not picture people with HIV as victims or as a threat. SILENCE=DEATH is © 1987 The Silence = Death Project, which lent it to ACT UP (the poster reads 'Used by permission by ACT-UP'); Gran Fury's website declares its own artwork public domain, but the photographed people and quoted brands are not: write your own slogan and stage your own photograph, and never present a generated image as a period work.
Extinction Rebellion Graphics: Extinction Rebellion is a living movement and the Extinction Symbol is credited to the artist ESP, who lends it to XR only for non-commercial use; XR says it will pursue anyone selling merchandise with it. Do not put the symbol, the XR logotype or a close imitation of the kit on products, fundraising, advertising or brand campaigns, and do not dress a company's climate message in XR's look to borrow its credibility.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With ACT UP
- Atelier Populaire (May '68 Screenprint Poster) Contrasts · Both answered a crisis with overnight slogans on the street, but the May '68 posters were brushed by hand and pulled in one ink, while most ACT UP and Gran Fury posters were professionally printed in offset and modelled on advertising; choose rough urgency or seductive polish before mixing them.
- Punk & DIY Zine Contrasts · Gran Fury photocopied some posters and handbills like a punk zine, but kept the layout clean and legible: one image, one slogan and plain sans type in place of ransom-note collage, even when the photograph broke into coarse xerox dots (Read My Lips); add punk's torn xerox only when the message should look home-made rather than official.
- Pop Art Graphics Pairs well · RIOT (1988), a painting later issued as a sticker, reworks Robert Indiana's LOVE letters and Kissing Doesn't Kill copies a Benetton campaign: borrow Pop's habit of lifting mass-media images and lettering, but replace Pop's ironic detachment with a named target and a demand.
- Corporate Identity Modernism Contrasts · Stands here for the logo logic of SILENCE=DEATH, one emblem and clean sans capitals repeated like a corporate mark; the advertising Gran Fury and ACT UP otherwise copied was 1980s brand campaigns and mastheads (Benetton, Nike, Coca-Cola, The New York Times) rather than mid-century corporate identity. Set an AIDS-era slogan in a corporate format when the point is to turn a brand's own voice against it.
- Latin American Feminist Protest Graphics (Ni Una Menos and the Green Wave) Contrasts · Two movements signed with a triangle, ACT UP's pink one on black and the green kerchief, but Gran Fury bought ad space and printed offset photographs and Futura, while the green wave wears its sign and letters its placards by hand; polish against handmade multitude.
- Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics) Contrasts · Its confrontational opposite: black grounds, hot pink and one blunt slogan, where the typical slideshow shuns 'blood red or black messaging' (Ría Thompson-Washington) and softens the message to stay comfortable.
- Plain Tobacco Packaging Pairs well · Gran Fury's white capitals on black are the activist cousin of the mandated warning statement; borrow their wit when a health message must persuade without leaning on clinical shock photographs.
- Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals) Pairs well · Both speak in white bold capitals on black; take Gran Fury's wit when a nutrition campaign must persuade around the shelf rather than only on the pack.
With Extinction Rebellion Graphics
- Pop Art Graphics Pairs well · The twelve bright colours were influenced by Eduardo Paolozzi; push a slogan poster further towards British Pop with fluorescent flat grounds and one playful image.
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Pairs well · FUCXED imitates old wood type and Burrill printed XR slogans from real wood type; pair the bright XR grounds with a jobbing printer's condensed wood letters for a hand-set protest poster.
- South African Resistance Poster Pairs well · Both are cheap workshop prints with heavy capitals and an organisation's emblem; XR adds a centrally specified twelve-colour kit where the struggle posters kept to one to three hand-cut inks.
- Corporate Identity Modernism Contrasts · XR borrows a corporate identity's tools (one symbol, a fixed logotype, a colour palette, a design guide) and turns them into a free, hand-printed kit that bans commercial use.
- Stencil Street Art Pairs well · ESP spread the symbol as a street artist before XR adopted it, chalking it on Brick Lane and putting up posters and tiles around East London; pair XR's one-colour emblem and short slogans with stencil street art's hard-edged sprayed figures for walls and pavements.
- Solidarność & Polish Underground Graphics Pairs well · A later movement that also lives on one simple mark anyone can copy by hand; pair a single shared emblem with locally made, cheaply printed posters to keep a campaign recognisable without central design.
- Belarusian Protest Illustration (2020 Uprising) Contrasts · Compare a prescribed wood-type and woodcut identity with an illustrator-led shared vocabulary: Belarusian examples do not require XR's oversized headline, carved texture, print workshop or fixed logo. Shared protest tone and few-colour printing are not evidence of descent.
- Solarpunk Contrasts · Both answer the climate crisis: XR shouts alarm in woodcut and flat spot colour; solarpunk paints the hopeful world after it. Pair them for campaigns that move from warning to vision.