Style combination · Contrasts

Grapus × International Typographic Style

Grapus rejected the Swiss style taught at the Arts Déco; set a scrawled, painted headline against a grid of neutral sans to stage that quarrel between personal voice and neutrality.

From the research on Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

Mix them and make something Grapus International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Grapus, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Grapus. 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.

Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective) International Typographic Style

Type from Grapus: Hand-lettering
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Grapus: Stylised figuration
Squiggles & confetti
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry

Grapus avoids modular grid: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Grapus: Painterly brushwork

The type

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

Display · Grapus

Tomorrow

Caveat, standing in for Handwriting in brush, felt-tip marker and crayon, written on the artwork in capitals or mixed case and often running sideways or round the picture, as on Poésies Aubervilliers (1983) and Peace! (1990)

Text · 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.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

The colours

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

Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#f5c518 accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #f5c518;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Caveat", cursive;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective): Grapus images were conceived and signed collectively, and Pierre Bernard and his former colleagues publicly disputed authorship and copyright in 2006, after his Erasmus Prize and a poster catalogue, so credit 'Grapus' rather than one designer; logos such as the Secours populaire's winged hand belong to the organisations that commissioned them, and the posters' party symbols and partisan slogans (the hammer and sickle, the PLO line on Palestine) should not be reused as neutral decoration.

The two styles

1970–1990 · Western Europe Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective) The posters and identities of Grapus, a Paris collective founded in 1970 by Communist Party members who had met in the 1968 poster workshops. Signed only 'Grapus' and the year, they served the PCF, the CGT union, suburban towns, theatres and causes, later ministries and museums: one visual idea or pun, on white paper or as a whole-sheet flag, photograph or night sky, photographs painted over beside childlike drawings, and handwritten slogans running round the image, militant but joyful. Split over the Louvre commission, the group dissolved at the end of 1990 (formally on 1 January 1991).

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.