Style combination · Contrasts

Dazibao × Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

The official painted poster and the crowd's handwritten one hung on the same walls; compare state polish with amateur urgency.

From the research on Dazibao (Big-Character Posters)

Mix them and make something Dazibao Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster, 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) Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

Type from Dazibao: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering
Colour from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster: Full polychrome
Gradients

Dazibao avoids full polychrome and gradients: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Form from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster: Naturalistic depiction
Stylised figuration

Dazibao avoids naturalistic depiction: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
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 · Dazibao

Wake

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

Text · Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

The official art doctrine of the Soviet Union from 1932, later exported across the socialist world, which replaced avant-garde experiment with legible, heroic realism 'national in form, socialist in content'. Its posters show idealised workers, soldiers and leaders on rising diagonals and low horizons, bathed in red, with bold slogans promising a radiant future; in China they merged with New Year print and calendar-poster conventions.

Zen Kaku Gothic New; Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster used Hand-drawn Cyrillic poster capitals in condensed grotesque and slab forms and Songti and Heiti display characters

The colours

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

Dazibao (Big-Character Posters) Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

#f3e8d2 ground · 36%
#1d1d1b ink · 14%
#f2c230 accent · 18%
#c3272b accent · 14%
#e3cf72 accent · 10%
#b5651d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3e8d2;
  --ink: #1d1d1b;
  --accent-1: #f2c230;
  --accent-2: #c3272b;
  --accent-3: #e3cf72;
  --accent-4: #b5651d;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", 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.

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 painted propaganda-style poster shows a worker raising a red flag, a woman holding golden grain, a soldier carrying a rifle with a bayonet, and a bespectacled man holding rolled plans. The words “BRIGHTER TOMORROW” appear above them, with a sunrise, mountains, a city, an elevated train and a dam in the background.

1932–1989 · Eastern Europe, Central Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster The official art doctrine of the Soviet Union from 1932, later exported across the socialist world, which replaced avant-garde experiment with legible, heroic realism 'national in form, socialist in content'. Its posters show idealised workers, soldiers and leaders on rising diagonals and low horizons, bathed in red, with bold slogans promising a radiant future; in China they merged with New Year print and calendar-poster conventions.