Stylogeny combining Dazibao × Kanga

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Style combination · Contrasts

Dazibao × Kanga

Both make a short sentence public, but the big-character poster pastes it on a wall in brush characters as the whole design, while the kanga prints it small in a box and lets the wearer carry it from house to house.

From the research on Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth)

Mix them and make something Dazibao Kanga

SquareDazibao × Kanga1957 · 1886
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Kanga, their arrangement from Kanga, the finish from Dazibao. 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.

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth)

Type from Dazibao
Colour from Kanga
Form from Kanga
Composition from Kanga
Surface from Dazibao

02

The type

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

Display · Dazibao

Square

Shippori Mincho, standing in for Freehand brush kaishu and xingshu (regular and running script)

Text · Kanga

Printed cotton wraps worn by women of the Swahili coast and its hinterland since the late nineteenth century, bought in pairs. Each kanga is one composition, not cloth by the yard: a wide border (pindo) frames a central field (mji) holding one motif or an even repeat, and a short Swahili saying (jina) in capitals sits in a box at the foot of the field. Woodblock-printed at first and industrially printed since, flat in a few bold colours, the cloth is chosen and worn for what its words say: proverbs, barbs, blessings and slogans.

Archivo; Kanga used Plain sans capitals and Hand-drawn block capitals

03

The colours

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

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth)

  • #f1ece2 ground · 36%
  • #1b1c26 ink · 14%
  • #f0b323 accent · 18%
  • #c3272b accent · 14%
  • #e3cf72 accent · 10%
  • #1f70a6 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1ece2;
  --ink: #1b1c26;
  --accent-1: #f0b323;
  --accent-2: #c3272b;
  --accent-3: #e3cf72;
  --accent-4: #1f70a6;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-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.

Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth): Kanga is the living dress of East African, especially Swahili, women: it wraps newborns, shrouds the dead and carries messages between neighbours, spouses and rivals, so its words matter more than its pattern. Never fill the text box with invented pseudo-Swahili or decorative Arabic letters (set Arabic script only when it spells a real, checked saying); use the brief's own words, or a real saying checked by a Swahili speaker with its translation, because a careless phrase can insult and some sayings invoke God. Some designs carry meanings of their own: the kisutu is bridal wear, in green or blue for a second or third marriage. Do not reuse portraits of real politicians or party emblems from campaign kangas out of context, and credit and commission East African designers and mills rather than presenting a generic 'African print'.

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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. A symmetrical folk-style illustration shows a leafy tree with a black and red trunk between two crested birds, surrounded by red flowers and berry-bearing branches. A blue border patterned with yellow flowers and green leaves frames the image, with “PAMOJA DAIMA” in black on a yellow panel at the bottom. 1886–present · Sub-Saharan Africa Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth) Printed cotton wraps worn by women of the Swahili coast and its hinterland since the late nineteenth century, bought in pairs. Each kanga is one composition, not cloth by the yard: a wide border (pindo) frames a central field (mji) holding one motif or an even repeat, and a short Swahili saying (jina) in capitals sits in a box at the foot of the field. Woodblock-printed at first and industrially printed since, flat in a few bold colours, the cloth is chosen and worn for what its words say: proverbs, barbs, blessings and slogans.

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More combinations

With Dazibao

With Kanga

Every style combination