Style combination · Pairs well
Cuban Tobacco Lithography × Shanghai Modern
Shanghai's calendar posters were also given away by tobacco firms; pair their softly modelled women and ornamental borders with the Havana label's medals and arms for a cross-continental tobacco or spirits heritage line.
Mix them and make something Cuban Tobacco Lithography Shanghai Modern
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.
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai
- Type from Shanghai Modern
- Colour from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Form from Shanghai Modern
- Composition from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Surface from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Text · Cuban Tobacco Lithography
The chromolithographed dress of Havana tobacco. Cigar labels were lithographed in one ink from the late 1840s; from about 1860 La Honradez printed its cigarette wrappers (marquillas) in colour in-house: satirical scenes of Cuban life in collectible series, framed by an allegorical border and the firm's emblem. Cigar boxes got a matched set of labels (habilitación): a vista inside the lid, a bofetón over the cigars, edge strips, seals and cigar bands, with medals, royal arms, allegorical women and Havana views in many inks from the 1880s, and gold leaf and stamped relief from about 1890.
Libre Caslon Text; Cuban Tobacco Lithography used Shaded, outlined and inline display capitals drawn by the lithographers and marquistas on the stone; J. R. Bermúdez (La imagen constante, 2000, quoted by Calzadilla) credits their wide repertoire of letters and ornaments with influencing type founders and sign painters and Brand and factory names on banners, ribbons and cartouches
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Cuban Tobacco Lithography, with a counter-accent from Shanghai Modern. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai
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#f2e8ccground · 36% -
#4a2e1fink · 14% -
#b51f2eaccent · 18% -
#c9a23faccent · 14% -
#9ccbdcaccent · 10% -
#2e5a3caccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f2e8cc;
--ink: #4a2e1f;
--accent-1: #b51f2e;
--accent-2: #c9a23f;
--accent-3: #9ccbdc;
--accent-4: #2e5a3c;
--font-display: "Limelight", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", serif;
}Use it with care
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas): Many marquillas trade in racist caricature: series such as 'Vida y muerte de la mulata' sexualise mixed-race women and mock Black Cubans in bozal speech, and some labels show enslaved workers on tobacco estates or bare-breasted 'aboriginal' women as exotic decoration; do not reproduce these figures as period charm. Names and dressings such as H. Upmann, Partagás, Punch and Romeo y Julieta are live Habanos trademarks, so draw new marks rather than copying them, and treat images of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Cuba's patron saint, as devotional, not decorative.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Contrasts · The same century's display capitals, borders and medals, but jobbing print leads with type in one or two flat inks while the Havana label leads with a stone-printed picture in many inks, gold and relief; set them side by side to choose between a loud notice and a luxury seal.
- Belle Époque Lithographic Poster Contrasts · Both are colour lithography of the same decades, but the Paris poster puts one figure on a wall at a distance, while the cigar label packs medals, arms and views into a matched set read in the hand; borrow the poster's single figure when a label grows too crowded.
- Hipster Artisanal Revival Contrasts · The craft-boom badge borrows the medal, the banner and the 'Est.' date in one ink on kraft; go back to the Havana label's full colour, bronze gold and embossing when a heritage brand needs real opulence rather than a quotation of it.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Contrasts · A century later in the same city, ICAIC and OSPAAAL posters used flat silhouettes, few inks and one conceptual image; compare them to see what the revolution's graphics stripped away from Havana's commercial ornament.
- Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Pairs well · The Cuban historian J. R. Bermúdez (quoted by Calzadilla) credits the label lettering with influencing type founders and sign painters; take the shaded, outlined brand capitals off the label and onto a shop window or bar fascia to carry a tobacco-house identity into the street.
- Egyptian Cigarette Packaging (Cairo Tobacco Houses) Pairs well · Borrow the Havana labels' embossed medals and ribbon banners for a richer lid, but keep the Cairo tin's calm pale ground so it does not tip into clutter.
- Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino) Contrasts · Both are lithographic trades of the Spanish-speaking world that print naturalistic paintings, but the Havana label frames allegories, medals and arms in borders within borders around a brand lettered on the stone, while the cartel vignettes one scene and sets a long programme below it in type.
- Plain Tobacco Packaging Contrasts · The gilded, embossed and bordered cigar label is everything a plain pack is forbidden to be; set the two side by side to show how much of tobacco's appeal was carried by ornament alone.
With Shanghai Modern
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Contrasts · After 1949 the same painters and rubbed-watercolour technique served propaganda; compare how one rendering style sells glamour versus ideology.
- Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Pairs well · Fold nianhua's auspicious symbols and bright folk colour into a calendar-poster layout for festive packaging.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Its framed, ornamented, figurative poster is the opposite of Swiss reduction; strip elements one by one to find what carries the mood.
- Art Deco Pairs well · Wrap a softly painted yuefenpai figure in Deco borders and geometric lettering for East–West period glamour.
- Republican Chinese Book Cover Design (Lu Xun & Tao Yuanqing) Contrasts · Same city and decades, opposite intent: calendar posters model glamorous women in soft polychrome with ornamental borders, while New Literature covers leave a plain field to one flat, symbolic motif and a drawn title.
- Mexican Calendar Chromo (Cromos calendáricos) Contrasts · Both are tobacco-sponsored calendar pictures of beauties, but yuefenpai set softly rubbed watercolour women inside decorative borders with the products alongside, while the Mexican chromo is an oil painting of a whole scene that fills the sheet, with the pad pasted at its foot.
- Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji Pairs well · Both put a modern-girl figure in East Asian commercial posters; combine the Japanese geometric lettering with Shanghai's painterly figure for a pan-Asian Deco look.
- Lianhuanhua Picture-Story Books Pairs well · Its parent print culture: pair a lianhuanhua line sequence with a yuefenpai-style painted cover for a period Shanghai feel.