Stylogeny combining French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster × International Typographic Style

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Style combination · Contrasts

French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster × International Typographic Style

The grid, neutral sans and photography of the same decades are its opposite in tone; one hand-drawn gag dropped into a Swiss layout makes a deliberate, disarming tension.

From the research on French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan)

Mix them and make something French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster International Typographic Style

FormFrench Post-War × International Typographic
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster, their arrangement from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster, the finish from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster. 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.

French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan) International Typographic Style

Type from International Typographic Style
Colour from International Typographic Style
Form from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster
Composition from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster
Surface from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster

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The type

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

Display · International Typographic Style

Form

Inter Tight, standing in for Akzidenz-Grotesk

Text · French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster

The humorous street poster of post-war Paris, which took off in 1949 when Raymond Savignac and Bernard Villemot showed their rejected projects together and Savignac's Monsavon cow, its udder filling a bar of soap, went up on the walls. With Hervé Morvan they reduced each advertisement to one cartoon gag whose punchline is the product: a stylised figure brushed in a few bright colours on a plain ground, the brand name drawn into the picture and almost no other copy, printed as large colour lithographs until agency photography pushed it aside in the 1970s.

Archivo; French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster used Brand name painted by the artist into the picture, often in bold sans capitals on the product itself and Roman capitals over a lowercase italic line, lettered on the product

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan) International Typographic Style

  • #f2f0e9 ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #e1251b accent · 18%
  • #1f4e9c accent · 14%
  • #f3c63a accent · 10%
  • #7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-3: #f3c63a;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan): Savignac, Villemot, Morvan and Carlu are in copyright (Adagp, Paris), and some of their images are still brand property: Savignac's Bic boy is part of the BIC logo, and Orangina reissued Villemot's zest parasol on its bottles in 2011. Invent your own gag for your own product rather than redrawing the Monsavon cow, the Maggi ox or the Bic boy, do not prompt an image model for a named affichiste's hand, and never present a generated image as a vintage affiche.

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The two styles

A stylised woman with short black hair sits with her knees raised, wearing a blue swimsuit and holding a yellow drink with a red-and-white striped straw. Above her, large hand-painted letters read “SOLEILADE,” with the yellow O surrounded by sun rays on a cream background. 1948–1979 · Western Europe French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan) The humorous street poster of post-war Paris, which took off in 1949 when Raymond Savignac and Bernard Villemot showed their rejected projects together and Savignac's Monsavon cow, its udder filling a bar of soap, went up on the walls. With Hervé Morvan they reduced each advertisement to one cartoon gag whose punchline is the product: a stylised figure brushed in a few bright colours on a plain ground, the brand name drawn into the picture and almost no other copy, printed as large colour lithographs until agency photography pushed it aside in the 1970s. The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right. 1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

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