Dhaka Rickshaw Painting × Hand-Painted Signage

Signage is lettering-led and restrained; rickshaw art is image-led and crowded.

From the research on Dhaka Rickshaw Painting

Mix them and make something Dhaka Rickshaw Painting Hand-Painted Signage

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

Dhaka Rickshaw Painting Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

Type from Hand-Painted Signage: Hand-lettering
Script
Colour from Dhaka Rickshaw Painting: Full polychrome
Fluorescent & neon
Form from Dhaka Rickshaw Painting: Abundant decoration
Floral & vegetal
Composition from Dhaka Rickshaw Painting: Framed panels
Horror vacui
Surface from Hand-Painted Signage: Hard offset shadow
Painterly brushwork

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 · Dhaka Rickshaw Painting

Oil paintings made by street artists on the metal back-board and canvas hood of cycle rickshaws in Bangladesh. Film stars, flowers, birds, landscapes and religious scenes appear in bold, raw colours, framed by borders and decked with appliqué, tinsel and plastic flowers. UNESCO inscribed it in 2023. Unlike the chrome, bone and wood work of pakistani-truck-art or the jeepney's metal ornament, its core is a framed oil picture panel, often led by a film-star portrait, with a plainer appliquéd hood.

Archivo; Dhaka Rickshaw Painting used Hand-painted Bangla lettering and Hand-painted Latin and Arabic-script lettering for names and religious phrases

The colours

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

Dhaka Rickshaw Painting Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

#f2c200 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e8559b accent · 18%
#c99a2e accent · 14%
#1b4fa0 accent · 10%
#b8262b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2c200;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e8559b;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #1b4fa0;
  --accent-4: #b8262b;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", cursive;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Dhaka Rickshaw Painting: This is a living craft practised by working, rarely credited artisans, tied to Bangladeshi communities and particular districts, and it is endangered as rickshaws decline; imitate its manner with care, credit makers where known (some sign with steel pins) and do not present pastiche as authentic rickshaw art.