Style combination · Pairs well

Australian Poster Collective Screenprints × Grapus

Both credit a collective rather than a designer and work for unions and community clients; borrow the Australians' hand-cut screenprint stencils when a Grapus-style idea must be printed cheaply and locally.

From the research on Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

Mix them and make something Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Grapus

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Grapus, their arrangement from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints, the finish from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints. 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.

Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

Type from Grapus: Hand-lettering
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints: Flat fields
Fluorescent & neon
Form from Grapus: Stylised figuration
Squiggles & confetti
Composition from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints: Single focal point
Layered information
Surface from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints: Halftone & Ben-Day dots
Flat

The type

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

Display · Grapus

Act

Caveat, standing in for Handwriting in brush, felt-tip marker and crayon, written on the artwork in capitals or mixed case and often running sideways or round the picture, as on Poésies Aubervilliers (1983) and Peace! (1990)

Text · Australian Poster Collective Screenprints

Screenprinted posters from the political poster collectives and community workshops that spread across Australia from Sydney's Tin Sheds, where Earthworks began in 1971. Early Earthworks posters borrowed psychedelic and Art Nouveau decoration before turning hard-edged and political; Redback Graphix then set fluorescent inks against black. Unsigned, punning and local, they served union, feminist, land-rights and community clients and were pasted up across the cities.

Archivo; Australian Poster Collective Screenprints used Hand-cut stencil lettering and Press-type (Letraset) display faces

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints, with a counter-accent from Grapus. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

#111111 ground · 36%
#f2ede3 ink · 14%
#f6e000 accent · 18%
#ff8a1f accent · 14%
#d62b2b accent · 10%
#ff3e8a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #111111;
  --ink: #f2ede3;
  --accent-1: #f6e000;
  --accent-2: #ff8a1f;
  --accent-3: #d62b2b;
  --accent-4: #ff3e8a;
  --font-display: "Caveat", cursive;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Australian Poster Collective Screenprints: Land-rights posters were often made with or for Aboriginal organisations (the Central and Northern Land Councils, Boomalli) and can include designs, stories and clan imagery that belong to particular Aboriginal artists and communities; the Aboriginal flag was designed by Luritja artist Harold Thomas in 1971. Do not borrow Aboriginal motifs, dot or cross-hatch patterns as a 'protest look'; work with First Nations artists and organisations under protocols such as Creative Australia's Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts.

Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective): Grapus images were conceived and signed collectively, and Pierre Bernard and his former colleagues publicly disputed authorship and copyright in 2006, after his Erasmus Prize and a poster catalogue, so credit 'Grapus' rather than one designer; logos such as the Secours populaire's winged hand belong to the organisations that commissioned them, and the posters' party symbols and partisan slogans (the hammer and sickle, the PLO line on Palestine) should not be reused as neutral decoration.

The two styles

A bold cycling campaign interface shows three helmeted cyclists against a large yellow circle and orange city silhouettes on black. Oversized pink and yellow slogans sit above a pink “LET’S RIDE” button and three navigation options.

1971–1994 · Oceania Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Screenprinted posters from the political poster collectives and community workshops that spread across Australia from Sydney's Tin Sheds, where Earthworks began in 1971. Early Earthworks posters borrowed psychedelic and Art Nouveau decoration before turning hard-edged and political; Redback Graphix then set fluorescent inks against black. Unsigned, punning and local, they served union, feminist, land-rights and community clients and were pasted up across the cities. 1970–1990 · Western Europe Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective) The posters and identities of Grapus, a Paris collective founded in 1970 by Communist Party members who had met in the 1968 poster workshops. Signed only 'Grapus' and the year, they served the PCF, the CGT union, suburban towns, theatres and causes, later ministries and museums: one visual idea or pun, on white paper or as a whole-sheet flag, photograph or night sky, photographs painted over beside childlike drawings, and handwritten slogans running round the image, militant but joyful. Split over the Louvre commission, the group dissolved at the end of 1990 (formally on 1 January 1991).

More combinations

With Australian Poster Collective Screenprints

With Grapus

Every style combination