Stylogeny combining Basel Object Poster × Plakatstil

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Style combination · Contrasts

Basel Object Poster × Plakatstil

Its parent and nearest relative: Berlin's Sachplakat flattens the product into a silhouette in two to four flat colours with heavy block lettering, while Basel paints the same single object in full light and shadow, glass and tweed included. Choose Basel when the material of the product should sell it.

From the research on Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)

Mix them and make something Basel Object Poster Plakatstil

FORMBasel Object Poster × Plakatstil1919 · 1905
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Basel Object Poster, their arrangement from Basel Object Poster, the finish from Basel Object Poster. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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) Plakatstil / Sachplakat

Type from Plakatstil
Colour from Plakatstil
Form from Basel Object Poster
Composition from Basel Object Poster
Surface from Basel Object Poster

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The type

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

Display · Plakatstil

Form

Big Shoulders, standing in for Lucian Bernhard's hand-drawn block lettering

Text · Basel Object Poster

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.

Fira Sans; Basel Object Poster used Brand name painted on the product and Light italic slogan over a heavy name

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Plakatstil, 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) Plakatstil / Sachplakat

  • #151515 ground · 36%
  • #efe5cf ink · 14%
  • #d2382b accent · 18%
  • #f0c419 accent · 14%
  • #24418f accent · 10%
  • #2f5d3a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #151515;
  --ink: #efe5cf;
  --accent-1: #d2382b;
  --accent-2: #f0c419;
  --accent-3: #24418f;
  --accent-4: #2f5d3a;
  --font-display: "Big Shoulders", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
}

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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 tall, slender red-orange dog stands facing right against a black background, with angular black cutouts defining its features and limbs. Large cream capital letters spell “VELOX” beneath its paws. 1905–1920 · Central Europe Plakatstil / Sachplakat The German 'object poster' launched by Lucian Bernhard's Priester match poster and printed by Berlin's Hollerbaum & Schmidt. It strips the advertisement to a single product rendered in flat, saturated colour and the brand name in bold hand-drawn letters on a plain ground, so the message registers instantly from a passing tram or across the street.

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More combinations

With Basel Object Poster

With Plakatstil

All 12 combinations with Plakatstil

Every style combination