Style combination · Pairs well
O Pasquim Satirical Press × Tropicália Graphic Design
A contemporary Brazilian counterculture; Tropicália's colour and collage can lift Pasquim's monochrome page.
Mix them and make something O Pasquim Satirical Press Tropicália Graphic Design
01
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.
O Pasquim Satirical Press Tropicália Graphic Design
- Type from O Pasquim Satirical Press
- Colour from Tropicália Graphic Design
- Form from O Pasquim Satirical Press
- Composition from Tropicália Graphic Design
- Surface from Tropicália Graphic Design
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · O Pasquim Satirical Press
Noise
Londrina Solid, standing in for Cartoonists' own hand lettering
Text · Tropicália Graphic Design
The graphic language of Brazil's Tropicália, foreshadowed by Rogério Duarte's poster for Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964), which already devours Ulm modernism, and set by his 1968 covers for Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. In the spirit of Oswald de Andrade's cultural cannibalism, it swallows Pop, psychedelia and Art Nouveau together with Brazilian popular kitsch: a cut-out photograph of the singer in a saturated, heavily outlined drawn world of tropical and national symbols, under hand-drawn titles. Under the dictatorship, irony and allegory said what could not be said.
Archivo; Tropicália Graphic Design used Art Nouveau-revival hand lettering and Comic-book display lettering projected upward
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Tropicália Graphic Design, with a counter-accent from O Pasquim Satirical Press. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
O Pasquim Satirical Press Tropicália Graphic Design
-
#f6c400ground · 36% -
#161616ink · 14% -
#d6177aaccent · 18% -
#8a8575accent · 14% -
#d9261caccent · 10% -
#00873eaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f6c400;
--ink: #161616;
--accent-1: #d6177a;
--accent-2: #8a8575;
--accent-3: #d9261c;
--accent-4: #00873e;
--font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
--font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Tropicália Graphic Design: The posters and covers remain under copyright and the photographs show named, living or recently living artists: borrow the method (a cut-out photograph in a saturated drawn world, national emblems turned ironic), not a particular sleeve or face. Tropicália used bananas, parrots and the flag's colours to mock the exotic image of Brazil and nationalist good taste; using them straight as tropical decoration reverses its meaning. Since 2015 the flag and the yellow team shirt have also become widespread conservative emblems in Brazil, so a straight verde-amarelo pastiche aimed at Brazilian audiences now reads as a partisan statement.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With O Pasquim Satirical Press
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · A rigid grid and neutral type are the opposite of Pasquim's dense, hand-lettered, cartoon-filled page.
- Underground Comix Pairs well · Share the hand-drawn, irreverent cartoon line, but borrow Pasquim's column-and-interview newspaper page for a more journalistic result.
- Turkish Weekly Humour Magazines (Gırgır to Uykusuz) Pairs well · Another cartoonist-led weekly where satire and local idiom carry political commentary under pressure.
- Il Male Newspaper-Forgery Satire Pairs well · Another satirical newspaper with cartoons; Il Male differs by forging real papers' front pages rather than publishing an original tabloid.
With Tropicália Graphic Design
- Literatura de Cordel Woodcut Pairs well · The cangaceiro hero of the north-eastern chapbook stands behind Duarte's Corisco; a cordel woodcut figure in a Tropicalist field of saturated colour keeps the popular and the Pop in one frame.
- Brazilian Concrete Design Contrasts · The Brazilian rational design Duarte trained beside and then swallowed: the 1964 Deus e o Diabo poster keeps concrete's lowercase Helvetica and aligned text blocks, then splits them with one cut-out figure in a sun; the 1968 covers drop the grid altogether.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Pairs well · Latin American film posters of the same years: Cuba's single silhouette and flat silkscreen colour can calm a Tropicalist composition that has grown too crowded.
- Afrobeat Sleeve Art Contrasts · Both crowd a political record sleeve with photographs and drawing, but Lemi Ghariokwu states the argument openly as captioned satire, while Tropicália hides it in irony and allegory to get past the censor.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Shares the crowded field and swelling hand lettering, but San Francisco melts type into whiplash ornament for a trance; Tropicália drops a photograph of the singer into the middle and adds national emblems, kitsch and political mockery. Choose Tropicália when the image must argue, not only dazzle.
- Angura Theatre Poster Contrasts · The atlas's nearest genome and an exact contemporary: both mock national kitsch with photomontage, sun rays and crowded flat colour, but angura posters screenprint nostalgic Meiji and Shōwa photographs in fluorescent ink, while Tropicália offset-prints a photograph of the singer amid tropical flora and the flag's green and yellow.
- Bossa Nova Sleeve Modernism (César Villela and Elenco) Contrasts · The next Brazilian generation went the other way: Rogério Duarte's 1968 covers fill the field with saturated colour, drawn tropical symbols and swelling hand lettering where Villela left white space, high-contrast black and white and three red dots. Set them side by side to choose between cool restraint and ironic excess.
- Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Pairs well · Tropicália revived Oswald de Andrade's Antropofagia as 'antropofagia visual' in the late 1960s; combine Klaxon's spare two-ink letterpress with Tropicália's saturated collage when a Brazilian theme needs both wit and heat.