Style combination · Pairs well
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints × WPA Silkscreen Posters
An earlier public-service silkscreen tradition; combine its calm stencil figures with the collectives' fluoro colour and puns.
Mix them and make something Australian Poster Collective Screenprints WPA Silkscreen Posters
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 WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Type from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
- Colour from WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Form from WPA Silkscreen Posters
- 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.
Display · Australian Poster Collective Screenprints
Square
Londrina Solid; Australian Poster Collective Screenprints used Hand-cut stencil lettering and Press-type (Letraset) display faces
Text · WPA Silkscreen Posters
Posters made by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration to promote health campaigns, education, theatre, travel and the national parks during the Depression. Unemployed artists adapted commercial silkscreen to print runs by hand, which gave the work its flat, opaque layered colour, simplified stylised forms and clear geometric lettering in a public-service voice.
Jost; WPA Silkscreen Posters used Hand-cut stencil lettering in geometric sans-serif capitals and Futura (Paul Renner, 1927) and similar geometric sans-serifs
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from WPA Silkscreen Posters, with a counter-accent from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Australian Poster Collective Screenprints WPA Silkscreen Posters
-
#efe6cfground · 36% -
#222222ink · 14% -
#c8622daccent · 18% -
#ff8a1faccent · 14% -
#d9a441accent · 10% -
#ff3e8aaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe6cf;
--ink: #222222;
--accent-1: #c8622d;
--accent-2: #ff8a1f;
--accent-3: #d9a441;
--accent-4: #ff3e8a;
--font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
--font-text: "Jost", 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
- 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.
- Psychedelic Poster Pairs well · Early Earthworks posters grew out of psychedelic decoration; reintroduce a hand-drawn ornamental border when a hard-edged stencil feels too austere.
- 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 WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Flat Design Pairs well · Its flat layered shapes translate directly to vector; use the national-park look for warm, civic flat illustration.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Calm, legible public information versus deliberate optical overload; choose WPA clarity when a message must reach everyone.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Both layer a few opaque inks; borrow WPA's stylised landscapes and plain messages for contemporary riso posters.
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Pairs well · Both mobilised a 1930s public with state-funded posters; add socialist realism's heroic low-angle figures to WPA's flat silkscreen colour when a civic campaign needs more urgency.
- Australian Travel Poster (ANTA Era) Contrasts · The Federal Art Project also made travel and national-park posters in the 1930s, but in flat, layered screenprint for public programmes; set them side by side to choose between commercial painted lithography and a few opaque public-service inks.
- Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design Pairs well · Both are 1930s state-backed poster programmes for public institutions and tourism; combine WPA silkscreen flatness with Görey's modelled figures for civic campaigns.
- Estado Novo Folk Modernism (SPN) Pairs well · Both turned 1930s state poster programmes toward the rural and the regional; borrow WPA's flat layered landscapes and add SPN heraldry for regional tourism or heritage pieces.
- Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art Pairs well · Douglas's 1934 murals were New Deal commissions; pair his silhouettes with WPA screenprint layouts for civic, narrative posters.