Style combination · Contrasts

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster × International Typographic Style

Hand-drawn calligraphy shaped to a figure against set grotesque on a grid; choose the Puerto Rican mode when the voice must be personal, local and in its own language.

From the research on Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP)

Mix them and make something Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster. 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.

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP) International Typographic Style

Type from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster: Hand-lettering
Brush & pen calligraphy
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster: Stylised figuration
Restrained accents
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster avoids modular grid: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster: Carved line
Flat

The type

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

Display · Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster

Order

Yatra One, standing in for Bold sans and slab-like display capitals cut for DIVEDCO film titles ('DOÑA JULIA', 'NENEN DE LA RUTA MORA'), with small sans capitals for the credit line 'Película hecha en Puerto Rico por la División de Educación de la Comunidad'

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 Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#f1bf2e accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #f1bf2e;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Puerto Rican Silkscreen Poster (DIVEDCO & ICP): The posters drew on living Puerto Rican traditions, among them the vejigante masks of the Afro-Puerto Rican fiestas de Santiago Apóstol in Loíza and the carved santos of household devotion, and many were public-education posters of the Muñoz Marín government; give these motifs their community and devotional context rather than using them as generic 'tropical' decoration, do not pass pastiches off as DIVEDCO or Instituto originals, and credit or commission Puerto Rican printmakers rather than lifting the look. The Instituto was founded in 1955 amid nationalist sentiment to foster a Puerto Rican identity distinct from that of the United States, and its Spanish hand lettering has been read as a passive resistance to US cultural influence, while DIVEDCO was a product of the governing Popular Democratic Party and its films, which these posters announced, often read as propaganda for it; keep the Spanish and the island subjects, and do not re-letter the look in English for US brands or reduce it to generic 'Latin' flavour.