Stylogeny combining Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster × Suprematism

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Style combination · Contrasts

Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster × Suprematism

The doctrine that outlawed non-objective art; set a pure red wedge against heroic figuration to show the 1930s rupture.

From the research on Suprematism

Mix them and make something Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Suprematism

RISESocialist Realist × Suprematism1932 · 1915
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Suprematism, their arrangement from Suprematism, the finish from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Suprematism

Type from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster
Colour from Suprematism
Form from Suprematism

Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster avoids non-representational: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Composition from Suprematism
Surface from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

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The type

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

Display · Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster

Rise

Big Shoulders, standing in for Hand-drawn Cyrillic poster capitals in condensed grotesque and slab forms

Text · Suprematism

Kazimir Malevich's non-objective art, unveiled with the Black Square at the 0.10 exhibition in Petrograd in 1915, reduced painting to pure geometric planes floating in white, infinite space. Through the UNOVIS collective in Vitebsk and El Lissitzky's books it became a graphic language of squares, bars and circles tilted on dynamic diagonals, the seedbed of Constructivist layout.

Hanken Grotesk; Suprematism used Russian grotesques (rubleny shrift) as set by Lissitzky and Hand-drawn lithographic lettering of UNOVIS publications

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Suprematism, with a counter-accent from Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Suprematism

  • #f4f1e8 ground · 36%
  • #121212 ink · 14%
  • #e9b824 accent · 18%
  • #cf2a27 accent · 14%
  • #2a4d8f accent · 10%
  • #3f7d4e accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #121212;
  --accent-1: #e9b824;
  --accent-2: #cf2a27;
  --accent-3: #2a4d8f;
  --accent-4: #3f7d4e;
  --font-display: "Big Shoulders", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

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The two styles

A painted propaganda-style poster shows a worker raising a red flag, a woman holding golden grain, a soldier carrying a rifle with a bayonet, and a bespectacled man holding rolled plans. The words “BRIGHTER TOMORROW” appear above them, with a sunrise, mountains, a city, an elevated train and a dam in the background. 1932–1989 · Eastern Europe, Central Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster The official art doctrine of the Soviet Union from 1932, later exported across the socialist world, which replaced avant-garde experiment with legible, heroic realism 'national in form, socialist in content'. Its posters show idealised workers, soldiers and leaders on rising diagonals and low horizons, bathed in red, with bold slogans promising a radiant future; in China they merged with New Year print and calendar-poster conventions. An off-white cover features a large red circle crossed by a thick diagonal black bar, with a red square, blue triangle, yellow bar, and small green circle. The black uppercase word “DRIFT” angles upward across the upper portion. 1915–1925 · Eastern Europe Suprematism Kazimir Malevich's non-objective art, unveiled with the Black Square at the 0.10 exhibition in Petrograd in 1915, reduced painting to pure geometric planes floating in white, infinite space. Through the UNOVIS collective in Vitebsk and El Lissitzky's books it became a graphic language of squares, bars and circles tilted on dynamic diagonals, the seedbed of Constructivist layout.

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