Stylogeny combining Basel Object Poster × Pop Art Graphics

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Style combination · Contrasts

Basel Object Poster × Pop Art Graphics

Both make an icon of a consumer product, but Pop repeats it in flat screenprinted colour with irony, where Basel paints one specimen with reverent, tactile care.

From the research on Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)

Mix them and make something Basel Object Poster Pop Art Graphics

HelloHelloBasel Object Poster × Pop Art Graphics
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Basel Object Poster, their arrangement from Basel Object Poster, the finish from Pop Art Graphics. 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) Pop Art Graphics

Type from Basel Object Poster
Colour from Pop Art Graphics
Form from Basel Object Poster
Composition from Basel Object Poster
Surface from Pop Art Graphics

02

The type

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

Display · Basel Object Poster

Hello

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 · Pop Art Graphics

Pop turned the commercial imagery of post-war consumer culture (comics, packaging, celebrity photographs and advertising) into both its subject and its method. Images are appropriated, enlarged, flattened and repeated; colour is bright and unmodulated; and the printing process itself, from Ben-Day dots to off-register silkscreen, is left visible as a sign of mass production.

Archivo; Pop Art Graphics used Comic-book hand lettering and Franklin Gothic

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Pop Art Graphics, 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) Pop Art Graphics

  • #fbf8f0 ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #ffd400 accent · 18%
  • #e10600 accent · 14%
  • #e0472b accent · 10%
  • #0057b8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #fbf8f0;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #ffd400;
  --accent-2: #e10600;
  --accent-3: #e0472b;
  --accent-4: #0057b8;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", 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 retro comic-style woman with curled dark hair, a pink headscarf and red nails holds an open bottle of dark fizzy drink. Large yellow “ZING!” lettering fills the top above bright starbursts, bubbles and red, yellow and blue halftone textures. 1955–1975 · North America, Western Europe Pop Art Graphics Pop turned the commercial imagery of post-war consumer culture (comics, packaging, celebrity photographs and advertising) into both its subject and its method. Images are appropriated, enlarged, flattened and repeated; colour is bright and unmodulated; and the printing process itself, from Ben-Day dots to off-register silkscreen, is left visible as a sign of mass production.

05

More combinations

With Basel Object Poster

With Pop Art Graphics

All 33 combinations with Pop Art Graphics

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