Stylogeny combining Basel Object Poster × Finnish Symbol Poster

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Style combination · Contrasts

Basel Object Poster × Finnish Symbol Poster

Kamekura compared Varis's humour to Leupin's, but the Basel poster paints the object in glossy relief where the Finnish one flattens it into a sign.

From the research on Finnish Symbol Poster (the 'Finnish School', 1954–1995)

Mix them and make something Basel Object Poster Finnish Symbol Poster

PopBasel Object Poster × Finnish Symbol Poster
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Finnish Symbol Poster, their arrangement from Basel Object Poster, the finish from Basel Object Poster. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat) Finnish Symbol Poster (the 'Finnish School', 1954–1995)

Type from Basel Object Poster
Colour from Finnish Symbol Poster
Form from Finnish Symbol Poster
Composition from Basel Object Poster
Surface from Basel Object Poster

Finnish Symbol Poster avoids skeuomorphic material: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

02

The type

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

Display · Basel Object Poster

Pop

Fira Sans, standing in for Brand name painted on the product (the woven MARQUE PKZ label, 1923; BINACA on the tube and METAMETA embossed on the fuel tablet, 1941)

Text · Finnish Symbol Poster

Finnish poster and symbol design, 1950s to 1990s, in which one reduced picture, often an animal, an object or a visual pun, carries the whole message on an empty ground. Varis aimed for posters with no text; his were called sign-like and visually reduced. Dry humour (Bruun's tongue-in-cheek Finnair salmon, 1958) sits beside a love of Finnish nature. Unlike its parent it also campaigns: the social posters of the 1960s–70s, Varis's Your Lifemeter (1970), Piippo's Ruanda (1994). The same makers drew national logos; Mykkänen's book covers are a typographic side strand.

Inter; Finnish Symbol Poster used No type at all and Slab-serif capitals in Bruun's The Salmon Flight (1958)

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Finnish Symbol Poster, with a counter-accent from Basel Object Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat) Finnish Symbol Poster (the 'Finnish School', 1954–1995)

  • #f3efe6 ground · 36%
  • #151515 ink · 14%
  • #ee8a1d accent · 18%
  • #f0c419 accent · 14%
  • #d22f27 accent · 10%
  • #1f4f9a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3efe6;
  --ink: #151515;
  --accent-1: #ee8a1d;
  --accent-2: #f0c419;
  --accent-3: #d22f27;
  --accent-4: #1f4f9a;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

A large wedge of golden cheese with a dark brown rind marked “ALPINA” and a mountain motif casts a shadow on a cream background. Below it, blue script reads “Pur et vrai” above large red “ALPINA” lettering. 1919–1955 · Central Europe Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat) The Swiss descendant of the German object poster, made in Zurich and above all Basel from 1919 to the early 1950s. One everyday product (a top hat, a tweed coat, a toothpaste tube, a fountain-pen nib, a match, a curl of butter) is painted larger than life with modelled light, cast shadows and tactile surfaces, set on a plain dark, pale or softly graded ground, with little more than the brand name as text. Rooted in the Neue Sachlichkeit, it raises the product to a quiet, uncanny icon; from about 1940 Leupin and Brun added humour and visual puns. A large red silhouette of a moose facing right fills most of a cream background, with broad branching antlers and a small cream eye. The word “NORTH” appears in large blue capital letters at the upper left. 1954–1995 · Northern Europe Finnish Symbol Poster (the 'Finnish School', 1954–1995) Finnish poster and symbol design, 1950s to 1990s, in which one reduced picture, often an animal, an object or a visual pun, carries the whole message on an empty ground. Varis aimed for posters with no text; his were called sign-like and visually reduced. Dry humour (Bruun's tongue-in-cheek Finnair salmon, 1958) sits beside a love of Finnish nature. Unlike its parent it also campaigns: the social posters of the 1960s–70s, Varis's Your Lifemeter (1970), Piippo's Ruanda (1994). The same makers drew national logos; Mykkänen's book covers are a typographic side strand.

05

More combinations

With Basel Object Poster

With Finnish Symbol Poster

Every style combination