Stylogenyin the style of Chicha Poster

Counterculture · 1980–present · Latin America & Caribbean

Chicha Poster

Also known as Cartel chicha, Gráfica chicha, Arte chicha

Fluorescent screen-printed street posters that emerged in the 1980s to promote chicha (Andean cumbia) concerts in Lima, made by printers from Andean migrant communities. Hand-drawn, swelling letters in day-glo pink, yellow, green and orange stack band names across the sheet, crammed edge to edge with dates, venues and slogans; the palette draws on Huanca festival costume as much as on 1960s psychedelia.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

Chicha graphics are the living craft of Andean migrant communities in Peru, and brands have borrowed the look without crediting its makers. Commission or credit working chicha printers and letterers rather than imitating their hand with fonts, and respect the Andean festival motifs it draws on.

01

How it works

  • Draw every letter by hand for the screen; use no fonts and no computer.
  • Stack the band's name in huge, swelling letters across the full width, then fill the remaining space with dates, venues and slogans.
  • Print in fluorescent inks so the poster glows at night on dimly lit streets.
  • Divide the sheet into horizontal bands of blended fluorescent colour and run lettering edge to edge with no margin.
  • Write slogans in local, poetic Peruvian Spanish; the words carry as much character as the letters.

Lima and the central Andes (Huancayo, Jauja), Peru

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
Generous white space, Pastel, Earth & mineral, Desktop publishing, Rational & objective, Luxurious & glamorous

Palette

  • #ff1f8e
  • #ffe800
  • #39e639
  • #ff7a00
  • #00b7eb
  • #111111

Typefaces

  • Hand-drawn chicha display lettering

    Monky, Elliot Túpac

  • Outlined, drop-shadowed block capitals

  • Sinuous psychedelic-derived letterforms

Known for

  • Pedro 'Monky' Rojas Meza

  • Elliot Túpac

  • Juan Tenicela

  • Publicidad Viusa

    Fortunato Urcuhuaranga's family print workshop, Ate, Lima

  • Familia Gutiérrez

    collective

  • Carga Máxima

    collective

  • Concert posters for Chacalón and Los Shapis

03

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 styleChicha Poster1980–present · Latin America & Caribbean

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.

04

Real works

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

05

Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha_(art)
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monky_(artist)
  3. NPR, Peruvians Love Their Chicha Street Art. City Officials, Not So Much (July 2015)

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