Style combination · Contrasts

Extinction Rebellion Graphics × Solarpunk

Both answer the climate crisis: XR shouts alarm in woodcut and flat spot colour; solarpunk paints the hopeful world after it. Pair them for campaigns that move from warning to vision.

From the research on Solarpunk

Mix them and make something Extinction Rebellion Graphics Solarpunk

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Solarpunk, their arrangement from Solarpunk, the finish from Extinction Rebellion Graphics. 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.

Extinction Rebellion Graphics Solarpunk

Type from Extinction Rebellion Graphics: All caps
Type as image
Colour from Extinction Rebellion Graphics: Flat fields
Limited spot colours
Form from Solarpunk: Biomorphic curves
Floral & vegetal
Composition from Solarpunk: Illusion of depth
Full bleed
Surface from Extinction Rebellion Graphics: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

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

Display · Extinction Rebellion Graphics

Fiesta

Alfa Slab One, standing in for FUCXED Caps (drawn by Clive Russell of This Ain't Rock'n'Roll from an old woodcut-style wood type he found on eBay, deliberately slightly wonky; XR's headline print face, download file FUCXED v4; FUCXED Latin is recommended for online graphics)

Text · Solarpunk

Hopeful eco-futurist imagery born online. The word dates from a 2008 blog post; the look from an August 2014 Tumblr post by the artist Olivia Louise asking for renewable technology with 'an Art Nouveau veneer'. Sunlit painted vistas, or flat, textured cover illustrations thick with foliage, show cities grown over with gardens, stained-glass solar panels, airships, wind power and shared streets full of people, in natural greens and sky blues warmed by gold. It fills book and magazine covers, concept art and animation as the daylit, communal opposite of cyberpunk's neon night.

Newsreader; Solarpunk used Swash, Art Nouveau-flavoured upper- and lowercase display lettering, as in Solarpunk Magazine's orange masthead and Wide, flared capitals with sun-wheel O's on a translucent title panel over the painting, as on the Sunvault cover

The colours

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

Extinction Rebellion Graphics Solarpunk

#f7ee6a ground · 36%
#000000 ink · 14%
#c80082 accent · 18%
#e8b445 accent · 14%
#14aa37 accent · 10%
#b8652f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f7ee6a;
  --ink: #000000;
  --accent-1: #c80082;
  --accent-2: #e8b445;
  --accent-3: #14aa37;
  --accent-4: #b8652f;
  --font-display: "Alfa Slab One", serif;
  --font-text: "Newsreader", serif;
}

Use it with care

Extinction Rebellion Graphics: Extinction Rebellion is a living movement and the Extinction Symbol is credited to the artist ESP, who lends it to XR only for non-commercial use; XR says it will pursue anyone selling merchandise with it. Do not put the symbol, the XR logotype or a close imitation of the kit on products, fundraising, advertising or brand campaigns, and do not dress a company's climate message in XR's look to borrow its credibility.

Solarpunk: Draw original worlds rather than pastiches of Studio Ghibli films or of living illustrators such as Likhain, Fei Fei Ruan or Stephen Lillie, and do not prompt an image model with their names. Do not use the look to greenwash: Adam Flynn calls luxury condos with a green roof that price out existing communities 'fake Solarpunk urbanism', so show shared, affordable infrastructure and ordinary people. When a scene borrows architecture, dress or symbols from a specific culture (Afrofuturist, Indigenous or other), keep their meanings and credit their makers.

The two styles

Huge distressed black letters reading “MORE TREES” fill the top of a bright green poster, above a large yellow-and-black bee with spread wings and radiating black lines. A small sprout emblem and the words “common ground” sit at the bottom.

2018–present · Western Europe, Global / networked Extinction Rebellion Graphics The visual identity of Extinction Rebellion, the climate movement founded in Stroud in 2018, built by its volunteer Art Group as a free kit anyone may print. Heavy, slightly wonky capitals based on old wood type (FUCXED) sit on flat grounds from a twelve-colour palette of brights and light tints, beside woodcut skulls, bees, butterflies, birds and flowers, signed with the XR logotype and often the circled-hourglass Extinction Symbol, attributed to the street artist ESP, who dates it to 2011. Blocks, screens and free downloads let crowds print their own flags, banners, placards and patches.

An ornate illustrated poster reads “BRIGHTER TOGETHER” above a sunlit, plant-covered city with glasshouses, bridges, waterfalls, wind turbines and sailboats on a canal. In the foreground, a woman tends flowers beside a man, a child and a cat, with flowering vines framing the scene.

2014–present · Global / networked, North America, Latin America & Caribbean Solarpunk Hopeful eco-futurist imagery born online. The word dates from a 2008 blog post; the look from an August 2014 Tumblr post by the artist Olivia Louise asking for renewable technology with 'an Art Nouveau veneer'. Sunlit painted vistas, or flat, textured cover illustrations thick with foliage, show cities grown over with gardens, stained-glass solar panels, airships, wind power and shared streets full of people, in natural greens and sky blues warmed by gold. It fills book and magazine covers, concept art and animation as the daylit, communal opposite of cyberpunk's neon night.

More combinations

With Extinction Rebellion Graphics

All 10 combinations with Extinction Rebellion Graphics

With Solarpunk

All 10 combinations with Solarpunk

Every style combination