Stylogenyin the style of Ghanaian Movie Poster

Traditions & vernacular · 1985–2005 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Ghanaian Movie Poster

Also known as Ghana movie posters, Flour-sack posters, Ghanaian video-club posters

Hand-painted posters commissioned by Ghana's mobile video clubs from about 1985, painted by apprenticed sign painters on stitched flour sacks to advertise VHS screenings of Hollywood, Hong Kong, Nigerian and Indian films. Often without having seen the film, artists invented gory, supernatural and hyper-muscular scenes around looming heads and hand-lettered titles, producing one of the most uninhibited poster vernaculars anywhere.

Make something in this styleGet advice in this styleMix it with another style

A painted horror-adventure poster titled “BLOOD SERPENT” shows a gigantic, fanged snake towering over a frightened woman in torn red clothing and a man raising a machete. A looming man adorned with skulls reaches forward above a burning village, with running figures, lightning, bones and bloody skulls filling the scene.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Paint on what is to hand, such as stitched flour sacks or cheap canvas, at near life size so the poster can be rolled, carried and hung outside a screening.
  • Promise more than the film delivers: add monsters, serpents, coffins, flames, blood and extra weapons, and give every body bulging muscles.
  • Let one giant head or looming figure dominate a smaller action scene, regardless of perspective or consistent scale.
  • Letter the title by hand in bold, outlined capitals, often in a coloured band or contrasting painted border.
  • Use saturated sign-painter enamels with quick, gestural modelling, letting skin, fire and blood carry the drama.

Accra, Teshie and other Ghanaian towns, painted for mobile video clubs

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, Modular grid, Straight photography, Non-representational, Flush left, ragged right, Pastel, Rational & objective

Palette

  • #c1121f
  • #f6c90e
  • #2b9348
  • #1e6fd9
  • #8a4b2a
  • #111111

Typefaces

  • Hand-painted outlined block capitals

  • Sign-painter shaded and drop-shadowed letters

Known for

  • Alex Nkrumah Boateng

    painting video-club posters from 1985

  • Joe Mensah

    pioneer of the detailed ‘Coastal style’

  • D. A. Jasper

    Accra

  • Heavy J

    Teshie

  • Leonardo

    King Kong Lives poster

  • Ernie Wolfe III (ed.), Extreme Canvas

    Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (2000)

  • Baptized by Beefcake

    The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Poster House, New York (2019)

03

Make something in this style

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

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

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 styleGhanaian Movie Poster1985–2005 · 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.

  • King Kong LivesLeonardo (Leonardo Arts) · 1992 · Poster House, New York (exhibition 'Baptized by Beefcake', 2019–20; lent by the Ernie Wolfe Gallery)
  • The BarbariansD. A. Jasper · 1995 · Poster House, New York (exhibition 'Baptized by Beefcake', 2019–20; lent by the Ernie Wolfe Gallery)
  • Terminator 2Joe Mensah · early 1990s (after the 1991 film) · Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles (Golden Age Movie Posters from Ghana)
  • TicksFrancisco · 1993 · Poster House, New York (exhibition 'Baptized by Beefcake', 2019–20; lent by the Ernie Wolfe Gallery)
  • House PartySowwy · 1990 · Poster House, New York (exhibition 'Baptized by Beefcake', 2019–20; lent by the Ernie Wolfe Gallery)
  • Howard the Duck (lettered 'Hoaward the Duck')Socrates Art · 1989 · Poster House, New York (exhibition 'Baptized by Beefcake', 2019–20; lent by the Ernie Wolfe Gallery)

06

Sources

  1. Ernie Wolfe III (ed.), Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (Dilettante Press/Kesho Press, 2000)
  2. AIGA Eye on Design, ‘The Over-the-Top Artistry of Ghana's Painted Movie Posters’ (2019)
  3. Poster House, Baptized by Beefcake: The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (exhibition, 2019)

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