Style combination · Pairs well
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints × Psychedelic Poster
Early Earthworks posters grew out of psychedelic decoration; reintroduce a hand-drawn ornamental border when a hard-edged stencil feels too austere.
Mix them and make something Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Psychedelic Poster
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.
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Psychedelic Poster
- Type from Psychedelic Poster
- Colour from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
- Form from Psychedelic Poster
- Composition from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
- Surface from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
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
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints, with a counter-accent from Psychedelic Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Psychedelic Poster
-
#111111ground · 36% -
#f2ede3ink · 14% -
#f6e000accent · 18% -
#ff6a13accent · 14% -
#e4007caccent · 10% -
#ff3e8aaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #111111;
--ink: #f2ede3;
--accent-1: #f6e000;
--accent-2: #ff6a13;
--accent-3: #e4007c;
--accent-4: #ff3e8a;
--font-display: "Federant", sans-serif;
--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.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
- WPA Silkscreen Posters Pairs well · An earlier public-service silkscreen tradition; combine its calm stencil figures with the collectives' fluoro colour and puns.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Contrasts · Cuban posters were state-commissioned single ideas; these were unsigned community jobs with text bands and local jokes, so decide whose voice the poster carries.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Today's riso studios inherit the fluoro inks, short runs and collective workshops; borrow Redback's black keyline to give riso colour more punch.
- BUGA UP Billboard Alteration Contrasts · Same Australian dissent, but studio screenprints made from scratch against alterations made on the advertiser's own board.
- See Red Women's Workshop Feminist Screenprints Pairs well · Sister screenprint collectives of the same years; add their brighter inks and halftone for a louder campaign poster.
- Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster Contrasts · Both hand-pull flat, hand-lettered screenprints from the same psychedelic root and both reach for fluoro inks; the Australian collectives printed for unions, marches and community causes (and some bands), often from photo stencils, and pasted them up at night, while the gig and alt-movie poster prints for one show, one film and a collector's wall, trading agitation for wit and nostalgia.
- Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective) Pairs well · 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.
- Australian Travel Poster (ANTA Era) Contrasts · Forty years later Australian screenprint collectives pasted up land-rights, union and feminist posters that answered the official sunlit image; pair the two to show whose Australia a poster sells.
With Psychedelic Poster
- Rave & Acid House Graphics Pairs well · Carry the vibrating fluorescent palette into rave-style chrome and airbrush to signal the 1960s-to-1990s lineage on purpose.
- Angura Theatre Poster Pairs well · Tokyo's angura theatre posters met psychedelia halfway; swap Art Nouveau curls for collaged Japanese ephemera and ukiyo-e waves while keeping the fluorescent silkscreen inks.
- Minimalist Graphic Design Contrasts · Set a single dense psychedelic panel in a field of white space for maximum shock and a clear focal point.
- Art Nouveau Pairs well · Borrow Art Nouveau's framing borders and flowing hair, then push the colour to fluorescent clash for an instant 1967 look.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Its exact opposite on legibility; one melting, shape-filling word can loosen an otherwise rigid Swiss layout.
- Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster Pairs well · 1970s Hindi film titles already flirted with psychedelic lettering; fuse the two for swirling, glowing title logos.
- Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster Pairs well · The 1960s Fillmore and Avalon posters are its ancestor; borrow one swelling, shape-filling title from them, but keep the band, date and venue line readable.
- Underground Comix Pairs well · Take the cover from the ballroom poster, with its clashing flat inks and melting letters, and keep the hatched black-and-white panels inside, as Zap did with Moscoso and Griffin.