Style combination · Contrasts

Dazibao × Hand-Painted Signage

Trained sign writers fit letters to a panel with care; dazibao writers fill sheets in haste, so set them together to weigh craft against urgency.

From the research on Dazibao (Big-Character Posters)

Mix them and make something Dazibao Hand-Painted Signage

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Hand-Painted Signage, their arrangement from Dazibao, the finish from Dazibao. 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.

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

Type from Hand-Painted Signage: Hand-lettering
Script
Colour from Dazibao: Monochrome
Limited spot colours
Form from Hand-Painted Signage: Borders & frames
Restrained accents
Composition from Dazibao: All-over field
Collage & layering
Surface from Dazibao: Painterly brushwork
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

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

Display · Hand-Painted Signage

Ours

Yellowtail, standing in for Brush script

Text · Dazibao

Handwritten wall posters in large brush characters that turned the walls of Mao-era China into a public forum for criticism, denunciation and, at the Democracy Wall, dissent. Written by anyone, in black or red ink on white or red paper, without printed type or pictures, they were pasted edge to edge and over each other until walls, mat screens and corridors became one dense, ever-changing field of text. The right to write them was struck from the constitution in 1980.

Shippori Mincho; Dazibao used Freehand brush kaishu and xingshu and Imitations of Mao Zedong's cursive calligraphy for headings

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Dazibao, with a counter-accent from Hand-Painted Signage. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

#f2eee3 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#c3272b accent · 18%
#c99a2e accent · 14%
#e3cf72 accent · 10%
#e9b9b5 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2eee3;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #c3272b;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #e3cf72;
  --accent-4: #e9b9b5;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", cursive;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters): Dazibao were instruments of denunciation: in the Anti-Rightist campaign and the Cultural Revolution they named, humiliated and incited violence against real people, many of whom were persecuted or died. Do not use the look as playful 'Chinese protest' decoration or for mock denunciations of real individuals, have any Chinese text written or checked by a fluent writer, and treat surviving posters and photographs as testimony.

The two styles

1957–1980 · East Asia Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Handwritten wall posters in large brush characters that turned the walls of Mao-era China into a public forum for criticism, denunciation and, at the Democracy Wall, dissent. Written by anyone, in black or red ink on white or red paper, without printed type or pictures, they were pasted edge to edge and over each other until walls, mat screens and corridors became one dense, ever-changing field of text. The right to write them was struck from the constitution in 1980.

An ornate rectangular sign reads “RIVER MARKET” in large cream-and-gold capital letters on a dark green background, with red shadows on the top word and blue shadows below. Gold borders and scrolling flourishes surround the lettering, with red decorative motifs in the black corners and visible painted texture throughout.

1800–present · Global / networked Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Letters painted by trained sign writers on fascias, windows, walls, vehicles and showcards, from Victorian gold leaf on glass to Mexican rótulos, Indian bazaar boards and Ghanaian barbershop signs. Brush-built letters with shading, drop shadows and outlines are fitted to the panel and mixed in a few styles for hierarchy, valuing legibility at a distance and the painter's flourish; vinyl displaced the craft in the 1980s and it has revived since the 2010s.