Style combination · Contrasts
AfriCOBRA × Afrofuturist Design
Both picture Black people with pride in saturated colour, but Afrofuturism goes to cosmic futures in jewel tones on black space; AfriCOBRA stays in the present-day neighbourhood, in daylight Cool-ade colour, with the slogan written into the figure.
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.
AfriCOBRA Afrofuturist Design
- Type from AfriCOBRA
- Colour from Afrofuturist Design
- Form from Afrofuturist Design
- Composition from AfriCOBRA
- Surface from AfriCOBRA
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · AfriCOBRA
New
Londrina Solid; AfriCOBRA used Hand-drawn block capitals fractured into coloured shards behind the figures and Letter-built portraits
Text · Afrofuturist Design
A visual language of Black futures that fuses African and diasporic iconography (pyramids and ankhs, Adinkra and Nsibidi glyphs, textile patterning) with spacecraft, cosmic fields and technology. From Sun Ra's Saturn records and Parliament-Funkadelic's comic-book sleeves to the Wakanda of Black Panther, it uses regal central figures, jewel and metallic colour on deep-space grounds, and pattern as technology to imagine liberation beyond history.
Jost; Afrofuturist Design used Wakandan script and Hand-lettered comix titling
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Afrofuturist Design, with a counter-accent from AfriCOBRA. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
AfriCOBRA Afrofuturist Design
-
#0b0a1aground · 36% -
#d4a017ink · 14% -
#c2185baccent · 18% -
#e8202aaccent · 14% -
#00a6a6accent · 10% -
#5fbf3aaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #0b0a1a;
--ink: #d4a017;
--accent-1: #c2185b;
--accent-2: #e8202a;
--accent-3: #00a6a6;
--accent-4: #5fbf3a;
--font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
AfriCOBRA: AfriCOBRA is a self-defined Black aesthetic made by Black artists for Black communities; the collective still exists, its members and estates hold the copyrights, and the raised fist, the ankh, Yoruba orisha imagery and slogans like Nation Time carry political and spiritual meaning. Do not strip the Kool-Aid palette and letter-filled portraits into generic 'retro Black Power' branding: credit the artists, and commission Black artists for work addressed to Black audiences.
Afrofuturist Design: Afrofuturism is a self-authored vision of Black futures that draws on meaning-bearing symbols (Adinkra, Nsibidi, Kemetic and textile motifs) tied to specific peoples. Use glyphs for what they mean rather than as generic 'tribal' texture, and commission, credit or collaborate with Black and African designers.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With AfriCOBRA
- Chicano Screenprint Poster Pairs well · Movement screenprints of the same years, made in and for their own communities: Chicano posters set one emblematic figure on flat colour, often parodying American packaging; AfriCOBRA packs the figure into a lettered, many-coloured field and stays sincere. Pair them, as both pair with the Panthers, for coalition work.
- Pop Art Graphics Contrasts · Pop used screenprint, bright colour and slogans with ironic distance from consumer culture; AfriCOBRA used the same tools for sincere, positive messages to Black viewers, so decide which voice the colour speaks in.
- Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art Pairs well · Aaron Douglas's flat silhouettes are an earlier Black self-portrait in print; set his stepped light and profiles beside AfriCOBRA's lettered colour to trace the line from the New Negro to Black Power.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Psychedelic lettering melts until it can barely be read; AfriCOBRA also fills figures and grounds with letters, but keeps the slogan legible because the message comes first.
- Black Lives Matter Street Murals Pairs well · AfriCOBRA's letter-built portraits and Kool-Aid colours are a ready model for filling each giant capital with Black portraiture and pattern; credit the artists and commission Black painters for the letters.
With Afrofuturist Design
- Corporate Memphis Contrasts · Corporate Memphis flattens people into anonymous blobs; Afrofuturism insists on specific, dignified, heroic Black figures.
- Techno-Futurist Graphics Pairs well · Combine interface graphics and chrome with ancestral pattern so technology feels owned rather than imported.
- Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art Pairs well · Aaron Douglas's Egyptian profiles and radiating bands of light are an early Black modernist vision; borrow his stepped light for cosmic scenes that acknowledge their lineage.
- Adinkra & Kente Symbol Systems Pairs well · Draw pattern and glyphs from Adinkra and Kente with their meanings intact to ground cosmic imagery in a specific heritage.
- Uli & Nsibidi Line and Sign Tradition Pairs well · Afrofuturism already borrows nsibidi, as in Black Panther's Ancient Wakandan script; keep uli's sparse dark line and real, public signs rather than glowing pseudo-glyphs on deep-space grounds.
- Solarpunk Pairs well · Wakanda is claimed by both: Afrofuturism brings ancestral glyphs, regal figures and cosmic dark grounds, solarpunk daylight, gardens and ordinary communities; join them with the symbols' meanings intact and Black artists credited.
- Afrobeat Sleeve Art Pairs well · Afrobeat supplies the grounded Pan-African politics and Afrofuturism the cosmic horizon; combine them for music packaging that is both angry and visionary.