Style combination · Pairs well

Arabic Calligraffiti × Syrian Revolution Graphics

Scale a brushed slogan from the poster up to a wall with calligraffiti's architectural sweep, keeping the words short and checked by a fluent reader.

From the research on Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives)

Mix them and make something Arabic Calligraffiti Syrian Revolution Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Arabic Calligraffiti, their arrangement from Arabic Calligraffiti, the finish from Arabic Calligraffiti. 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.

Arabic Calligraffiti Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives)

Type from Syrian Revolution Graphics: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering
Colour from Syrian Revolution Graphics: Limited spot colours
Monochrome
Form from Arabic Calligraffiti: Biomorphic curves
Whiplash line
Composition from Arabic Calligraffiti: Organic flow
Full bleed
Surface from Arabic Calligraffiti: Painterly brushwork
Hard offset shadow

The type

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

Display · Syrian Revolution Graphics

Ours

Rakkas, standing in for Freely brushed Arabic calligraphy for one- or two-word slogans, composed for each poster rather than typed in a stock font; one member said he sometimes spent two days designing a single word such as 'freedom' or 'revolution', and that some pieces drew on Persian calligraphy (Al-Safir interview, 2012)

Text · Arabic Calligraffiti

Arabic letters sprayed, rolled and brushed at the scale of buildings. From the early 2000s graffiti writers, many of Arab, Iranian or South Asian background, turned hip-hop wall writing to Arabic script, keeping its outlines and aerosol but dropping Latin tags, bubble letters and cartoon characters. Calligraphic letters freed from the reed-pen rules are stretched, interlaced and stacked into one sweeping gesture across a wall, a tunnel, a minaret or a whole district, spelling a verse, poem or saying chosen for the place, a political comment, or words picked for their shape.

Oswald; Arabic Calligraffiti used Freehand Arabic script sprayed or painted rather than written with a reed pen, after calligraphy but without its rules or a uniform hand and eL Seed's 'Liquid Alphabet'

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Syrian Revolution Graphics, with a counter-accent from Arabic Calligraffiti. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Arabic Calligraffiti Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives)

#f1ece0 ground · 36%
#151515 ink · 14%
#c8102e accent · 18%
#f07f1e accent · 14%
#f6c32b accent · 10%
#007a3d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1ece0;
  --ink: #151515;
  --accent-1: #c8102e;
  --accent-2: #f07f1e;
  --accent-3: #f6c32b;
  --accent-4: #007a3d;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Oswald", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Arabic Calligraffiti: Many works carry Qur'anic verses, the names of God or devotional sayings, written on mosques and in religious communities: never use such text as texture or put it on floors, footwear or throwaway items, and have every Arabic or Persian word read and approved by a fluent reader before it is painted or printed. The style stretches and interlaces letters, so put a Qur'anic verse or a name of God into it only when a skilled Arabic-script writer composes it and the mosque or community approves it, as at the Jara Mosque; never digitally warp, crop or mirror existing sacred text. Never fill a design with invented pseudo-Arabic, which image models readily produce; do not ask an image model for eL Seed's Liquid Alphabet or any named writer's hand, and never present a generated wall as their work. The best-known walls rest on the consent of governors, imams, priests and residents, so get the owner's permission (spraying without it is a crime in most places), work with the people of the place, and commission and credit Arabic-script writers rather than faking the script for a brand.

Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives): These graphics come from an uprising met with massacres, sieges, detention and disappearance, and their makers worked under pseudonyms at real risk: Raed Fares and Hamoud Junaid were shot dead in Kafranbel on 23 November 2018 (local activists blamed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which did not claim it), and the collective signed only with its own name, so never attribute a poster to an individual member or expose anyone who made this work. The martyr, siege, bread and Hama motifs refer to real massacres and real dead, not to an edgy 'war poster' look. The collective's posters were released under Creative Commons BY-NC, so do not use them or close pastiches commercially, and credit the collective, Kafranbel and the Creative Memory archive. The three-star flag has been the state flag since the HTS-dominated caretaker government took it up after Assad's fall, so using it, or Kafranbel's banners, as generic 'Syria' branding can imply an alignment their makers never gave. Have every Arabic line read by a fluent reader, never fill a design with pseudo-Arabic, do not mock the broken English of some banners, which was written to be understood abroad, and never present a generated image as a work of the uprising.

The two styles

Large black Arabic calligraphy intertwines with sweeping blue, orange and yellow ribbons on a cream background. Rough brush edges, speckles and paint splatters texture the flowing composition.

2002–present · Middle East & North Africa, Western Europe, Global / networked Arabic Calligraffiti Arabic letters sprayed, rolled and brushed at the scale of buildings. From the early 2000s graffiti writers, many of Arab, Iranian or South Asian background, turned hip-hop wall writing to Arabic script, keeping its outlines and aerosol but dropping Latin tags, bubble letters and cartoon characters. Calligraphic letters freed from the reed-pen rules are stretched, interlaced and stacked into one sweeping gesture across a wall, a tunnel, a minaret or a whole district, spelling a verse, poem or saying chosen for the place, a political comment, or words picked for their shape.

A black-and-cream image of a child reaching toward a green flying dove appears beneath large red Arabic brush lettering. Ruined buildings and rubble stretch along the lower right against a textured cream background.

2011–2024 · Middle East & North Africa Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives) Protest graphics of the Syrian uprising from 2011, made to be photographed and shared online rather than to last on a wall. In Kafranbel, a town in Idlib, calligraphers lettered Raed Fares's weekly slogans on white cloth in Arabic and often in English for audiences abroad, beside Ahmad Jalal's dark cartoons that parodied Western films and album covers. The anonymous collective The Syrian People Know Their Way posted posters for activists to print: one figure in halftone, silhouette or loose outline under a brushed Arabic slogan, answering the Assad cult's monolithic iconography.

More combinations

With Arabic Calligraffiti

With Syrian Revolution Graphics

Every style combination