Style combination · Pairs well
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics × Tropicália Graphic Design
Tropicália revived Oswald de Andrade's Antropofagia as 'antropofagia visual' in the late 1960s; combine Klaxon's spare two-ink letterpress with Tropicália's saturated collage when a Brazilian theme needs both wit and heat.
Mix them and make something Brazilian Modernismo Graphics Tropicália Graphic Design
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.
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Tropicália Graphic Design
- Type from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics
- Colour from Tropicália Graphic Design
- Form from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics
- Composition from Tropicália Graphic Design
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Brazilian Modernismo Graphics avoids collage & layering: this is where the two pull against each other.
- Surface from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Brazilian Modernismo Graphics
Riot
Anton, standing in for Heavy jobbing grotesque capitals (KLAXON across every Klaxon cover, 1922-23; condensed grotesques for the mock 'Aviso á Praça' and price list)
Text · Tropicália Graphic Design
The graphic language of Brazil's Tropicália, foreshadowed by Rogério Duarte's poster for Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964), which already devours Ulm modernism, and set by his 1968 covers for Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. In the spirit of Oswald de Andrade's cultural cannibalism, it swallows Pop, psychedelia and Art Nouveau together with Brazilian popular kitsch: a cut-out photograph of the singer in a saturated, heavily outlined drawn world of tropical and national symbols, under hand-drawn titles. Under the dictatorship, irony and allegory said what could not be said.
Archivo; Tropicália Graphic Design used Art Nouveau-revival hand lettering and Comic-book display lettering projected upward
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Tropicália Graphic Design, with a counter-accent from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Tropicália Graphic Design
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#f6c400ground · 36% -
#161616ink · 14% -
#d6177aaccent · 18% -
#c8402aaccent · 14% -
#e08a6caccent · 10% -
#00873eaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f6c400;
--ink: #161616;
--accent-1: #d6177a;
--accent-2: #c8402a;
--accent-3: #e08a6c;
--accent-4: #00873e;
--font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22): Antropofagia's cannibal metaphor and its Tupi words ('Tupy, or not tupy') were a São Paulo elite's figure of speech about Indigenous peoples, not their own voice: borrow the method of swallowing and recombining foreign models, not Tupi people or ritual as decoration. Much of this work is still in copyright in Brazil (life plus 70 years): Guilherme de Almeida (died 1969), Anita Malfatti (1964), Tarsila do Amaral (1973), Di Cavalcanti (1976), John Graz (1980), Paim (1988) and Yan de Almeida Prado (1991); Brecheret (1955) entered the Brazilian public domain on 1 January 2026. A straight green-and-yellow flag pastiche now reads in Brazil as a partisan emblem, so quote Pau Brasil's gesture of rewriting the flag rather than the flag itself.
Tropicália Graphic Design: The posters and covers remain under copyright and the photographs show named, living or recently living artists: borrow the method (a cut-out photograph in a saturated drawn world, national emblems turned ironic), not a particular sleeve or face. Tropicália used bananas, parrots and the flag's colours to mock the exotic image of Brazil and nationalist good taste; using them straight as tropical decoration reverses its meaning. Since 2015 the flag and the yellow team shirt have also become widespread conservative emblems in Brazil, so a straight verde-amarelo pastiche aimed at Brazilian audiences now reads as a partisan statement.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Brazilian Modernismo Graphics
- Brazilian Concrete Design Pairs well · Almeida's tumbled LACTA advertisement gained new meaning once concrete poetry arrived in the 1950s. Set a Klaxon-style word image on a concrete grid to keep the play of letters but discipline its spacing.
- Vorticism & BLAST Typography Contrasts · Both set heavy jobbing grotesque with thick rules and bars in a little magazine, BLAST in 1914 and Klaxon in 1922; BLAST shouts lists beside machine abstractions, Klaxon keeps one quiet cover forme, jokes about the sonnet trade and draws figures in contour.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Neutral grid and one sans against a jobbing case of mixed faces, broken words and mock adverts: set a Klaxon cover beside a Swiss poster to show order against irony.
- Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil) Pairs well · Two playful letterpress avant-gardes of the 1920s that turned posters, programmes and adverts into poems; Devětsil's photomontage and bars can stand in where Klaxon would use a contour drawing.
- Art Deco Contrasts · The same decade with opposite manners: Deco's gold and luxury against Klaxon's tinted card, single ink and jokes about the sonnet trade.
- Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics Pairs well · Two Latin American avant-gardes launched within two months of each other (Actual No. 1 in December 1921, the Semana in February 1922). Pair Klaxon's shared-letter letterpress cover with a Stridentist woodcut skyline for a 1920s magazine that is both witty and machine-mad.
With Tropicália Graphic Design
- Literatura de Cordel Woodcut Pairs well · The cangaceiro hero of the north-eastern chapbook stands behind Duarte's Corisco; a cordel woodcut figure in a Tropicalist field of saturated colour keeps the popular and the Pop in one frame.
- Brazilian Concrete Design Contrasts · The Brazilian rational design Duarte trained beside and then swallowed: the 1964 Deus e o Diabo poster keeps concrete's lowercase Helvetica and aligned text blocks, then splits them with one cut-out figure in a sun; the 1968 covers drop the grid altogether.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Pairs well · Latin American film posters of the same years: Cuba's single silhouette and flat silkscreen colour can calm a Tropicalist composition that has grown too crowded.
- Afrobeat Sleeve Art Contrasts · Both crowd a political record sleeve with photographs and drawing, but Lemi Ghariokwu states the argument openly as captioned satire, while Tropicália hides it in irony and allegory to get past the censor.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Shares the crowded field and swelling hand lettering, but San Francisco melts type into whiplash ornament for a trance; Tropicália drops a photograph of the singer into the middle and adds national emblems, kitsch and political mockery. Choose Tropicália when the image must argue, not only dazzle.
- Angura Theatre Poster Contrasts · The atlas's nearest genome and an exact contemporary: both mock national kitsch with photomontage, sun rays and crowded flat colour, but angura posters screenprint nostalgic Meiji and Shōwa photographs in fluorescent ink, while Tropicália offset-prints a photograph of the singer amid tropical flora and the flag's green and yellow.
- Bossa Nova Sleeve Modernism (César Villela and Elenco) Contrasts · The next Brazilian generation went the other way: Rogério Duarte's 1968 covers fill the field with saturated colour, drawn tropical symbols and swelling hand lettering where Villela left white space, high-contrast black and white and three red dots. Set them side by side to choose between cool restraint and ironic excess.
- La Movida Madrileña Graphics Contrasts · Both answer a dictatorship with ironic, saturated, hand-lettered Pop that swallows national kitsch; Tropicália did it under the regime, with cut-out photographs of singers in Art Nouveau curves, while the Movida came after Franco's death, drawing comics and sacred camp with a democratic city council paying for some of the magazines.