Style combination · Contrasts

ACT UP × Instagram Slideshow Activism

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.

From the research on Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)

Mix them and make something ACT UP Instagram Slideshow Activism

A cream-coloured HIV awareness poster pairs enormous black lettering reading “CARE KEEPS US HERE” with a black-and-white image of two men embracing against a pink circle. Eight numbered panels on the right combine health and community messages with photographs of people, an HIV test, pills, a condom packet, clasped hands and a megaphone, plus coloured speech bubbles. — AI-generated by Stylogeny from the recipe below, and checked against it: the type from ACT UP, the form from ACT UP, the composition from Instagram Slideshow Activism. Not a real or historical work.

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 Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)

Type from ACT UP: All caps
Type as image
Colour from Instagram Slideshow Activism: Pastel
Flat fields
Form from ACT UP: Naturalistic depiction
Geometric primitives
Composition from Instagram Slideshow Activism: Sequential narrative
Full bleed
Surface from ACT UP: Photocopy & distress
Flat

Instagram Slideshow Activism avoids photocopy & distress: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

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 · Instagram Slideshow Activism

The text-led explainer slideshows that filled Instagram after George Floyd's murder in May 2020. Up to ten square or 4:5 slides in one carousel (twenty since August 2024) are read like a PowerPoint deck: a title card in big type with a swipe arrow, then bullet-point slides with sources and a call to action. Pastel pink, yellow and blue grounds, large serif or bubbly, wide sans headings, gradients and playful flat figures, often from Canva templates, borrow the look of millennial brands to reach apolitical readers.

Inter; Instagram Slideshow Activism used Large display serifs on the title card and Ovo (Nicole Fally, Sorkin Type, 2011), a medium-contrast serif with soft serifs and old-style letter widths

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Instagram Slideshow Activism, 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 Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)

#fdf6ec ground · 36%
#1e1e1e ink · 14%
#c9962c accent · 18%
#c8102e accent · 14%
#b9d7ee accent · 10%
#f06ea9 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #fdf6ec;
  --ink: #1e1e1e;
  --accent-1: #c9962c;
  --accent-2: #c8102e;
  --accent-3: #b9d7ee;
  --accent-4: #f06ea9;
  --font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", 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.

Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics): The look grew out of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and critics such as the sociologist Eve Ewing warned that slides flatten complex problems and summarise the work of often Black authors without credit: name and link every source, credit the people whose work you condense, and check claims before posting. Do not turn the names and faces of people killed by police into decorative or shareable motifs; Vox quotes a warning that the look can 'commodify tragedy and obfuscate revolutionary messages' and notes that Breonna Taylor's death 'devolved into a meme'. Do not dress brand marketing in the look to perform allyship without action, and remember that its friendly packaging works for any message, including an army's messaging in an armed conflict (the IDF slideshow of May 2021) and misinformation, which text inside images makes hard to moderate. Write the slide text into the caption or alt text so screen-reader users can follow it.