Stylogenyin the style of Australian Poster Collective Screenprints

Counterculture · 1971–1994 · Oceania

Australian Poster Collective Screenprints

Also known as Earthworks posters, Tin Sheds posters, Redback Graphix, Australian political screenprint posters

Screenprinted posters from the political poster collectives and community workshops that spread across Australia from Sydney's Tin Sheds, where Earthworks began in 1971. Early Earthworks posters borrowed psychedelic and Art Nouveau decoration before turning hard-edged and political; Redback Graphix then set fluorescent inks against black. Unsigned, punning and local, they served union, feminist, land-rights and community clients and were pasted up across the cities.

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A bold cycling campaign interface shows three helmeted cyclists against a large yellow circle and orange city silhouettes on black. Oversized pink and yellow slogans sit above a pink “LET’S RIDE” button and three navigation options.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

Land-rights posters were often made with or for Aboriginal organisations (the Central and Northern Land Councils, Boomalli) and can include designs, stories and clan imagery that belong to particular Aboriginal artists and communities; the Aboriginal flag was designed by Luritja artist Harold Thomas in 1971. Do not borrow Aboriginal motifs, dot or cross-hatch patterns as a 'protest look'; work with First Nations artists and organisations under protocols such as Creative Australia's Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts.

01

How it works

  • Screenprint from hand-cut and photo stencils in sharp, unmodulated colour.
  • Place one central image between bands of text above and below, translated into community languages where the audience needs it.
  • Set fluorescent inks against black to make cheap colour look brighter.
  • Use local vernacular imagery and puns rather than borrowed international revolutionary icons.
  • Credit the collective rather than the individual, and make each poster for a specific community client.

Tin Sheds Art Workshop, University of Sydney, then collectives and workshops in Wollongong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Darwin

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
Authoritative & institutional, Luxurious & glamorous, Gloss & highlights, Gradients, Pastel, Painterly illustration, Modular grid

Palette

  • #111111
  • #ff3e8a
  • #ff8a1f
  • #f6e000
  • #c0392b
  • #f2ede3

Typefaces

  • Hand-cut stencil lettering

  • Press-type (Letraset) display faces

  • Hand-drawn Art Nouveau and psychedelic lettering

    early Earthworks

Known for

  • Earthworks Poster Collective, Tin Sheds, University of Sydney

    from 1971; disbanded 1979

  • Michael Callaghan and Earthworks, Give Fraser the razor

    1977, four-stencil screenprint

  • Redback Graphix, The Daily Oppression

    1982, five-stencil screenprint for the Committee in Solidarity with Central America & the Caribbean

  • Marie McMahon, Chips Mackinolty and Toni Robertson

  • Jalak Graphics posters for the Central and Northern Land Councils

    Lorna Fencer, Abie Jangala

  • Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, We have survived

    1988

  • Black Banana Poster Collective, Brisbane; Lucifoil, Sydney

    1980–83

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Australian Poster Collective Screenprints’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 styleAustralian Poster Collective Screenprints1971–1994 · Oceania

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. 'Political clout: Australian posters', Eye magazine (eyemagazine.com)
  2. Wikipedia: Australian poster collectives
  3. National Gallery of Australia, Australian Prints + Printmaking records for Give Fraser the razor (1977) and The Daily Oppression (1982) (printsandprintmaking.gov.au)

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.