Style combination · Pairs well

Graffiti × Ultras Graphics

Ginhoux compares ultras' tag and sticker wars to graffiti crews; add a writer's tags, throw-ups and wall murals to carry a group's name from the banner into the street.

From the research on Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo)

Mix them and make something Graffiti Ultras Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Ultras Graphics, their arrangement from Graffiti, the finish from Graffiti. 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.

Graffiti & Hip-Hop Graphics Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo)

Type from Graffiti: Hand-lettering
Type as image
Colour from Ultras Graphics: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Ultras Graphics: Emblems & badges
Rectilinear
Composition from Graffiti: Illusion of depth
Diagonal axis
Surface from Graffiti: 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 · Graffiti

Fiesta

Sedgwick Ave Display, standing in for Wildstyle lettering

Text · Ultras Graphics

The graphic language of Italy's organised football supporters, the ultras, from the late 1960s, and of the groups that copied them across Europe, North Africa and beyond. Each group paints its name in huge, squared, tightly packed capitals on a long cloth hung along the railing of the curva, in the club's colours alone. For big matches the whole stand becomes one picture of cards, flags, smoke and giant painted sheets, and one-colour stickers and murals carry the same names, skulls and borrowed pop icons into the city.

Jost; Ultras Graphics used The 'Ultras Liberi' genre and Set display faces enlarged and painted by hand

The colours

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

Graffiti & Hip-Hop Graphics Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo)

#f4f1ea ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#f2b705 accent · 18%
#e4002b accent · 14%
#00a3e0 accent · 10%
#1d3c8f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #f2b705;
  --accent-2: #e4002b;
  --accent-3: #00a3e0;
  --accent-4: #1d3c8f;
  --font-display: "Sedgwick Ave Display", cursive;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo): Ultras graphics belong to living, often closed supporters' groups whose banner, name and emblem stand for the group itself, so do not lift a real group's name, logo or lettering for a brand, campaign or fashion line as if it were anonymous street style. The language carries the political baggage of both extremes of 1970s street politics: Vice and Scalcione trace the 'Ultras Liberi' lettering to French and Italian far-right lettering, and some curve, such as S.S. Lazio's Ultras (1974), are known for fascist slogans, but group names such as Commando, Brigate and Fedayn were borrowed from political marches, and many 1970s ultras came from the extra-parliamentary left, Lotta Continua above all, so the same sign can mean opposite things in two curve; check what a borrowed symbol or slogan has meant in that curva before using it. Fare's guide to discriminatory practices in European football lists the SS Totenkopf skull, Sig and Odal runes, the Wolfsangel, the Celtic cross (often in place of an 'O') and the code '88' among the far-right symbols seen in stadiums on banners, stickers and shirts: never use them, and keep a borrowed skull clearly apart from the Totenkopf, as the guide does. Nazi symbols are banned by law in Germany, Austria, Poland and other countries, and UEFA fined Germany's football association after its fans showed a neo-Nazi flag at Euro 2012. Memorial displays and murals, for the 74 dead of Port Said in 2012, 72 of them Al Ahly supporters, or the Superga air crash of 1949, are acts of mourning, not decoration. In Egypt a Cairo court banned all ultras groups in May 2015 and members have been arrested since; do not attribute new work to Egyptian ultras groups or their members. Flares and smoke are dangerous and banned in many stadiums; do not present pyrotechnics as a device to imitate.

The two styles

Oversized, multicoloured graffiti lettering reading “BEATZ” fills the poster, surrounded by paint splashes, arrows, stars and a yellow crown. A city skyline and suspension bridge appear above, with a boombox, vinyl records, subway train and spray can below.

1972–present · North America, Global / networked Graffiti & Hip-Hop Graphics Born on New York's subway cars and Bronx party flyers, graffiti writing turns the writer's name into a monumental letter-sculpture: bubble, block and wildstyle letters with arrows, 3D drop shadows, fades and highlights, painted freehand in aerosol. Hip-hop's flyers, sleeves and logos carried the same lettering, cartoon characters and street swagger into print and then around the world. 1968–present · Southern Europe, Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East & North Africa, Southeast Asia, North America Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo) The graphic language of Italy's organised football supporters, the ultras, from the late 1960s, and of the groups that copied them across Europe, North Africa and beyond. Each group paints its name in huge, squared, tightly packed capitals on a long cloth hung along the railing of the curva, in the club's colours alone. For big matches the whole stand becomes one picture of cards, flags, smoke and giant painted sheets, and one-colour stickers and murals carry the same names, skulls and borrowed pop icons into the city.