Style combination · Pairs well

Russian Constructivism × Ukrainian Wartime Graphics

The campaign lettering quotes Vasyl Yermylov of the Kharkiv avant-garde, which the atlas's Russian Constructivism entry absorbs without naming him and Ukrainian designers reclaim as their own; the link runs through one campaign's typeface, not the composition. Add constructivism's diagonals and heavy bars to a blue-and-yellow slogan for urgent information posters.

From the research on Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine)

Mix them and make something Russian Constructivism Ukrainian Wartime Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Ukrainian Wartime Graphics, their arrangement from Russian Constructivism, the finish from Russian Constructivism. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Russian Constructivism Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine)

Type from Russian Constructivism: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
All caps
Colour from Ukrainian Wartime Graphics: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Ukrainian Wartime Graphics: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges
Composition from Russian Constructivism: Diagonal axis
Extreme scale contrast
Surface from Russian Constructivism: Flat

The type

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

Display · Russian Constructivism

Wake

Archivo Black, standing in for Soviet heavy grotesques (rubleny shrift)

Text · Ukrainian Wartime Graphics

The graphics of Ukraine's defence since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, made by the state, the national post, agencies, illustrators and volunteers at home and abroad. Flat figures in the flag's blue and yellow are drawn to read at sticker and stamp size; sacred and official forms are recast with dark humour, from an icon Madonna cradling a Javelin missile to a soldier giving the finger to the cruiser Moskva on a postage stamp. Memes, merchandise and photographs under the trident turn morale into fundraising and a national brand of bravery.

Space Grotesk; Ukrainian Wartime Graphics used KTF Jermilov (Kyiv Type Foundry, 2021), a modular display face whose capitals are built from a few geometric elements on a 3 × 5 square grid, after the typographic practice of the Kharkiv avant-garde designer Vasyl Yermylov; used in Be Brave Like Ukraine and Yermylov Bold, made in 2018 for Banda's Ukraine NOW country brand and inspired by Yermylov's constructivist work

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Ukrainian Wartime Graphics, with a counter-accent from Russian Constructivism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Russian Constructivism Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine)

#f4f1e8 ground · 36%
#1c1c1c ink · 14%
#0057b7 accent · 18%
#d1261c accent · 14%
#c9a14a accent · 10%
#c9b28a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #1c1c1c;
  --accent-1: #0057b7;
  --accent-2: #d1261c;
  --accent-3: #c9a14a;
  --accent-4: #c9b28a;
  --font-display: "Archivo Black", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Space Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine): This is the visual culture of a country under invasion, and most of it refers to real events and real people, among them the Snake Island border guards, the Moskva and the tractors that towed away abandoned Russian tanks, so use it to support Ukraine and its fundraisers, not as an edgy 'war' look for unrelated products. Saint Javelin is a charity brand run by Christian Borys, built on Chris Shaw's painting with his after-the-fact acceptance; lawyers for the soldier who spoke the warship line and for the Ukrainian military filed for an EU trademark on it in March 2022 against clothing firms that tried to register it; the stamps belong to Ukrposhta and the campaign to the state and Banda, so do not sell copies or close pastiches. The icon parodies put a weapon where the Christ child should be, and Borys defends them by the tradition of icons that comforted soldiers, but they can hurt believers, and even the murals have been contested (a trident halo on a Kyiv Saint Javelin mural was painted over), so do not put weapons into the sacred images of other faiths. Scholars such as Nadia Kaneva describe the Be Brave campaign as nation branding used as propaganda, so label state material as state material, and never present a generated image as a Ukrainian stamp, campaign poster or work of a Ukrainian artist.

The two styles

1917–1934 · Eastern Europe Russian Constructivism Constructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society. In posters, books, film publicity and state advertising it fused bold grotesque type, heavy bars, photomontage and diagonal axes into an urgent, utilitarian language of agitation that shaped modern graphic design worldwide.

A blue-and-yellow illustration shows a woman wearing a sunflower wreath with flowing ribbons and an embroidered blouse, holding a bundle of wheat. Large yellow capitals beneath her read “OUR HARVEST.”

2022–present · Eastern Europe, Global / networked Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine) The graphics of Ukraine's defence since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, made by the state, the national post, agencies, illustrators and volunteers at home and abroad. Flat figures in the flag's blue and yellow are drawn to read at sticker and stamp size; sacred and official forms are recast with dark humour, from an icon Madonna cradling a Javelin missile to a soldier giving the finger to the cruiser Moskva on a postage stamp. Memes, merchandise and photographs under the trident turn morale into fundraising and a national brand of bravery.