Style combination · Contrasts

South African Resistance Poster × Cuban Revolutionary Poster

State-funded Cuban posters are polychrome and conceptual where these are literal, text-heavy and cheap; pick by whether the audience needs an idea or an instruction.

From the research on South African Resistance Poster

Mix them and make something South African Resistance Poster Cuban Revolutionary Poster

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from South African Resistance Poster, their arrangement from Cuban Revolutionary Poster, the finish from Cuban Revolutionary Poster. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

South African Resistance Poster Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC)

Type from South African Resistance Poster: Hand-lettering
All caps
Colour from South African Resistance Poster: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from South African Resistance Poster: Emblems & badges
Stylised figuration
Composition from Cuban Revolutionary Poster: Single focal point
Isolated object
Surface from Cuban Revolutionary Poster: Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · South African Resistance Poster

Act

Allerta Stencil, standing in for Hand-cut stencil capitals

Text · Cuban Revolutionary Poster

The poster culture of revolutionary Cuba, produced for the film institute ICAIC and the solidarity organisation OSPAAAL. With no commercial advertising and scarce materials, designers made bold silkscreen and offset posters that combined Pop and psychedelic colour, op-art pattern, flat silhouettes and single conceptual images, for cinema and for internationalist causes from Vietnam to Africa.

Archivo; Cuban Revolutionary Poster used Hand-cut silkscreen display lettering and Neo-grotesque sans captions repeated in Spanish, English, French and Arabic

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from South African Resistance Poster, with a counter-accent from Cuban Revolutionary Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

South African Resistance Poster Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC)

#f4f1e8 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#f2b51d accent · 18%
#d7261e accent · 14%
#007a4d accent · 10%
#d6337a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #f2b51d;
  --accent-2: #d7261e;
  --accent-3: #007a4d;
  --accent-4: #d6337a;
  --font-display: "Allerta Stencil", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

South African Resistance Poster: The photograph of the dying Hector Pieterson (Sam Nzima, 16 June 1976) and the portraits of detainees and the dead show real people whose families and communities still remember them, and ANC, UDF and COSATU colours and the spear and shield are the marks of living organisations. Use them with context and permission rather than as generic protest styling.