Stylogenyin the style of South African Resistance Poster

Pictorial & machine age · 1978–1994 · Sub-Saharan Africa

South African Resistance Poster

Also known as Anti-apartheid posters, Struggle posters, Medu posters, 1980s community silkscreen posters

The posters of the struggle against apartheid, from the exiled Medu Art Ensemble in Gaborone to the community workshops that served the United Democratic Front and the unions in the 1980s. Low-tech silkscreen from hand-cut stencils was chosen on purpose: cheap, quick to teach, workable without electricity and often illegal. One to three flat inks carry heavy hand-lettered slogans, organisation logos, fists, crowds and photographs converted to line.

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Large black, yellow and red lettering reads “LAND FOR PEOPLE” above a stylised agricultural worker wearing a red headscarf and holding a hoe. Green crop rows, hills, small houses and a tree extend behind the figure beneath a large yellow sun.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

The photograph of the dying Hector Pieterson (Sam Nzima, 16 June 1976) and the portraits of detainees and the dead show real people whose families and communities still remember them, and ANC, UDF and COSATU colours and the spear and shield are the marks of living organisations. Use them with context and permission rather than as generic protest styling.

01

How it works

  • Print short, cheap silkscreen runs from hand-cut or painted stencils in one to three flat inks.
  • Give the slogan up to half the sheet in heavy hand-lettered or stencilled capitals.
  • Sign with organisation colours and acronyms: ANC black, green and gold; UDF and COSATU red, yellow and black.
  • Draw from a shared vocabulary of fists, banners, marching crowds, spear and shield, and portraits of leaders and the fallen.
  • Convert photographs to high-contrast line so they survive a hand-pulled screen.
  • Let the message come from the community meeting rather than from the individual artist.

Medu Art Ensemble in exile in Gaborone, Botswana, and community silkscreen workshops in Johannesburg (Screen Training Project), Cape Town (Community Arts Project) and Durban

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Full polychrome, Gradients, Gloss & highlights, Ironic & self-aware, Luxurious & glamorous, Abundant decoration, Ornamented display

Palette

  • #141414
  • #007a4d
  • #f2b51d
  • #d7261e
  • #f4f1e8

Typefaces

  • Hand-cut stencil capitals

  • Hand-lettered heavy block capitals

  • Letraset dry-transfer display type

  • Helvetica

    typeset posters of the late 1980s

Known for

  • Medu Art Ensemble, Gaborone (1978–85), about ninety posters smuggled into South Africa

  • Judy Seidman for Medu, You Have Struck a Rock

    1981, silkscreen

  • Thami Mnyele

    Medu

  • Screen Training Project, Johannesburg

    from 1983

  • Community Arts Project, Cape Town

  • Junction Avenue silkscreen posters for the Fattis & Monis boycott

    1979

  • Poster Book Collective, Images of Defiance

    South African Resistance Posters of the 1980s (Ravan Press, 1991)

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from South African Resistance Poster’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

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04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleSouth African Resistance Poster1978–1994 · Sub-Saharan Africa

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. South African History Archive, 'Making posters in South Africa' (saha.org.za)
  2. MoMA post, on Judy Seidman and Medu, You Have Struck a Rock (post.moma.org)
  3. Poster Book Collective, Images of Defiance: South African Resistance Posters of the 1980s (Ravan Press, 1991)

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