Stylogeny combining Basel Object Poster × Surrealist Graphics

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Style combination · Pairs well

Basel Object Poster × Surrealist Graphics

Both paint ordinary things with illusionistic precision until they look strange; borrow a Magritte-like juxtaposition to push a Basel still life from product portrait to visual riddle, as Leupin did with his newspaper and globe.

From the research on Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)

Mix them and make something Basel Object Poster Surrealist Graphics

HelloBasel Object Poster × Surrealist Graphics
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Surrealist Graphics, their arrangement from Surrealist Graphics, 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) Surrealist Graphics

Type from Basel Object Poster
Colour from Basel Object Poster
Form from Surrealist Graphics
Composition from Surrealist Graphics

Basel Object Poster avoids collage & layering: this is where the two pull against each other.

Surface from Basel Object Poster

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 · Surrealist Graphics

Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bodoni Moda; Surrealist Graphics used Artists' hand-lettered mastheads and Didone and Victorian display faces lifted from 19th-century catalogues

03

The colours

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

Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat) Surrealist Graphics

  • #f1ece0 ground · 36%
  • #121212 ink · 14%
  • #f0c419 accent · 18%
  • #a24a2a accent · 14%
  • #e0472b accent · 10%
  • #d8b77a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1ece0;
  --ink: #121212;
  --accent-1: #f0c419;
  --accent-2: #a24a2a;
  --accent-3: #e0472b;
  --accent-4: #d8b77a;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Bodoni Moda", 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 distressed, surreal collage combines a large woman's face with a curling seashell, stone staircases, ruined arches, and cliffside buildings above a blue sea. An orange fish floats in the foreground, a tiny person stands on the stairs, and a golden disc hangs among clouds beside the title “The Drift.” 1924–1960 · Western Europe, North America Surrealist Graphics Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

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More combinations

With Basel Object Poster

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