Style combination · Pairs well
Screenprinted Gig × WPA Silkscreen Posters
Firewatch, the game Olly Moss art-directed, takes its look from National Park posters, and Killscreen (2014) likened its trailer to the Federal Art Project's 1930s national-park posters; give a fannish subject that calm public-service look and the wit shows.
Mix them and make something Screenprinted Gig WPA Silkscreen Posters
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.
Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Type from Screenprinted Gig
- Colour from WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Form from WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Composition from Screenprinted Gig
- Surface from Screenprinted Gig
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Screenprinted Gig
Fiesta
Londrina Solid; Screenprinted Gig used Hand-drawn display lettering by the poster artist, drawn into the image and Condensed sans-serif and wood-type-style capitals for the band, venue and date line
Text · WPA Silkscreen Posters
Posters made by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration to promote health campaigns, education, theatre, travel and the national parks during the Depression. Unemployed artists adapted commercial silkscreen to print runs by hand, which gave the work its flat, opaque layered colour, simplified stylised forms and clear geometric lettering in a public-service voice.
Jost; WPA Silkscreen Posters used Hand-cut stencil lettering in geometric sans-serif capitals and Futura (Paul Renner, 1927) and similar geometric sans-serifs
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from WPA Silkscreen Posters, with a counter-accent from Screenprinted Gig. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster WPA Silkscreen Posters
-
#efe6cfground · 36% -
#222222ink · 14% -
#c8622daccent · 18% -
#f2b134accent · 14% -
#3d5a7aaccent · 10% -
#6f7a45accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe6cf;
--ink: #222222;
--accent-1: #c8622d;
--accent-2: #f2b134;
--accent-3: #3d5a7a;
--accent-4: #6f7a45;
--font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster: Film characters, logos and band names belong to their owners: Mondo's Star Wars and Marvel posters were made under licence from Lucasfilm and Disney, so clear the rights before printing a fan 'alt poster'; gig posters are the living trade of named independent printmakers, so commission or credit them rather than generating look-alikes of a recognisable artist's hand; and when you borrow the scene's sweet-and-sinister mix, keep the sinister half to monsters, skulls and noir rather than hate symbols or real atrocities: Kozik's own art drew on the iconography of Franco's fascist regime, under which he spent his earliest years in Spain, and that is not a costume to reuse.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Screenprinted Gig
- Pop Art Graphics Pairs well · Shepard Fairey called Kozik 'the punk rock Warhol'; take Pop's appropriated cartoons and halftones and give them a gig poster's single idea and hand-lettered title.
- Psychedelic Poster Pairs well · The 1960s Fillmore and Avalon posters are its ancestor; borrow one swelling, shape-filling title from them, but keep the band, date and venue line readable.
- Polish Poster School Pairs well · Both swap the star's photograph for one idea; add the Polish school's painted ambiguity to a flat screenprint when a film poster needs to unsettle rather than wink.
- Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Contrasts · Both hand-pull flat, hand-lettered screenprints from the same psychedelic root and both reach for fluoro inks; the Australian collectives printed for unions, marches and community causes (and some bands), often from photo stencils, and pasted them up at night, while the gig and alt-movie poster prints for one show, one film and a collector's wall, trading agitation for wit and nostalgia.
- American Mid-Century Modernism Pairs well · Saul Bass's film posters are a favourite model of the alternative movie poster (Film Comment found the Bass homages 'far too plentiful' in 2014); borrow his one cut-paper symbol that holds the whole story.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Contrasts · Riso gives translucent soy inks and grain on small sheets; choose the screenprint for heavier ink, opaque where it must cover, on a large sheet that collectors frame, and riso for cheap, quick runs.
- Bandung Distro Graphics Pairs well · Both screenprint scene-made graphics for bands; distro moves the print from paper onto cloth.
- Spotify Duotone Identity Pairs well · Add hand-lettered, flat-ink poster drawing to recall the gig-flier roots of the look.
With WPA Silkscreen Posters
- Flat Design Pairs well · Its flat layered shapes translate directly to vector; use the national-park look for warm, civic flat illustration.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Calm, legible public information versus deliberate optical overload; choose WPA clarity when a message must reach everyone.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Both layer a few opaque inks; borrow WPA's stylised landscapes and plain messages for contemporary riso posters.
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Pairs well · Both mobilised a 1930s public with state-funded posters; add socialist realism's heroic low-angle figures to WPA's flat silkscreen colour when a civic campaign needs more urgency.
- Australian Travel Poster (ANTA Era) Contrasts · The Federal Art Project also made travel and national-park posters in the 1930s, but in flat, layered screenprint for public programmes; set them side by side to choose between commercial painted lithography and a few opaque public-service inks.
- Australian Poster Collective Screenprints Pairs well · An earlier public-service silkscreen tradition; combine its calm stencil figures with the collectives' fluoro colour and puns.
- Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design Pairs well · Both are 1930s state-backed poster programmes for public institutions and tourism; combine WPA silkscreen flatness with Görey's modelled figures for civic campaigns.
- Estado Novo Folk Modernism (SPN) Pairs well · Both turned 1930s state poster programmes toward the rural and the regional; borrow WPA's flat layered landscapes and add SPN heraldry for regional tourism or heritage pieces.