Style combination · Pairs well
ACT UP × Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
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.
Mix them and make something ACT UP Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
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 Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals)
- Type from Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
- Colour from Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
- Form from Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
- Composition from ACT UP
- Surface from ACT UP
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
Rise
Inter Tight, standing in for Arial Bold (Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype, 1982): prescribed in Chile's Decree 13, Diagram No. 1 ('la familia "Arial", específicamente en su presentación "bold"'), for 'ALTO EN', the nutrient and 'Ministerio de Salud'
Text · ACT UP
The graphics of New York's AIDS activist movement: the SILENCE=DEATH poster of 1987, a pink triangle above white capitals on black, and the posters, stickers, T-shirts, billboards and bus ads of Gran Fury (1988–1995), ACT UP's 'unofficial propaganda ministry'. Professional offset print and the language of Madison Avenue (staged photographs, one-line slogans, facts in small print) were placed where advertising goes, to accuse government, church, press and drug companies of letting people with AIDS die.
Fira Sans; 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
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons, 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 Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals)
-
#000000ground · 36% -
#ffffffink · 14% -
#ffcc00accent · 18% -
#c8102eaccent · 14% -
#f06ea9accent · 10% -
#0072bcaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #000000;
--ink: #ffffff;
--accent-1: #ffcc00;
--accent-2: #c8102e;
--accent-3: #f06ea9;
--accent-4: #0072bc;
--font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Fira Sans", 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.
Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals): The octagons are legal instruments owned by health ministries, and imitating them on real products, in advertising or in generated images can mislead shoppers about a food's composition or pass for an official warning. Use the visual language for health communication, research or clearly fictional work, check each country's current specification before reproducing a seal, and do not turn the warning into decoration or a parody that could make a sign meant to discourage consumption appealing again.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With ACT UP
- Extinction Rebellion Graphics Pairs well · 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.
- 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.
With Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons
- Plain Tobacco Packaging Contrasts · Plain packaging erases the brand and hands the face to a shock photograph; the octagons leave the brand intact and add a small, uniform black sign. Choose between them by deciding whether the warning should replace the design or interrupt it.
- Yuru-chara (Japanese Local Mascot Design) Contrasts · Mascot design is exactly what a sealed pack must give up in Chile and Mexico; put the two side by side to show how much of a snack's appeal is carried by a character.
- Corporate Identity Modernism Pairs well · The seal is built like a corporate mark, from a unit grid, one typeface, one colour and a size table; borrow the standards-manual discipline when a public-health sign must stay identical across thousands of packs.
- Nutri-Score (Front-of-Pack Colour-Grade Label) Contrasts · The Latin American seals warn in black, one nutrient at a time, by law; Nutri-Score grades the whole food on a coloured five-step scale and is voluntary in most countries. Choose the octagon to stop a purchase and the colour scale to steer a comparison.