Counterculture · 1980–present · Latin America & Caribbean
Jamaican Dancehall Signs & Sleeve Art
Also known as Dancehall signs, Dance signs, Sound-system clash posters
The street graphics of Jamaica's dancehall era. One-off hand-painted signs, nailed to light poles and trees, announce sound-system dances and clashes, with sound-system and artist names stacked in bold, bright letters. On record sleeves, Wilfred Limonious's crowded comic caricatures gave the music its face. Both are ephemeral and topical: the signs are mostly unsigned, rarely dated and burned as litter once the dance is over.
Make something in this styleGet advice in this styleMix it with another style
01
How it works
- Let the lettering be the picture: stack sound-system and artist names in bold block or outlined capitals sized by billing.
- Bill rival sound systems like a prize fight, with venue, date and admission stepping down in size beneath them.
- Paint each sign by hand in saturated colour for one event, to be read from the roadside and abandoned after it.
- Speak to the moment by quoting the current tune, catchphrase or headline rather than picturing the venue.
- On sleeves, cram a single comic frame with big-headed caricatured deejays, punning captions and speech balloons.
Kingston and rural Jamaica: signs nailed to light poles and trees for sound-system dances, stage shows and clashes; Kingston record labels for sleeves
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
- Surface & texture
- Medium & production
- Tone & intent
- Avoids
- Generous white space, Ornament-free, Modular grid, Desktop publishing, Rational & objective, Nostalgic & retro
Palette
#ffd400#e3241b#00933f#1d5fd0#ff4f9a#111111
Typefaces
Hand-painted block and outlined capitals with drop shadows
dance signs
Wilfred Limonious's hand-drawn cartoon titling and speech balloons
Known for
Maxine Walters collection
about 4,000 signs, early 1980s onward
Serious Things A Go Happen
Three Decades of Jamaican Dancehall Signs (Hat & Beard Press; shown at HVW8 Gallery Berlin, 2017)
Wilfred Limonious (c. 1949–1999)
more than 150 album covers and single-frame cartoons for The Star
In Fine Style
The Dancehall Art of Wilfred Limonious (Christopher Bateman and Al 'Fingers' Newman, One Love Books)
03
Make something in this style
Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Jamaican Dancehall Signs & Sleeve Art’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.
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.
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.
- Stage-show signs for Gregory Isaacs and Leroy Gibbons at Bourbon Beach, Negril, nailed to a roadside poleUnrecorded Jamaican sign painter (photograph by Dubdem Sound System) · January 2009 (shows dated Sat 3 and Mon 5 Jan 2009) · Wikimedia Commons (photograph from the Dubdem Sound System Flickr set 'Jamaican Tour 2009')
- Signs for the 17th annual Bob Marley Birthday Bash and the Winter Splash show with Mykal Rose and King Yellowman, NegrilUnrecorded Jamaican sign painters (photograph by Dubdem Sound System) · January–February 2009 (Winter Splash dated Thu 8 Jan 09; Birthday Bash Feb 1–7) · Wikimedia Commons (photograph from the Dubdem Sound System Flickr set 'Jamaican Tour 2009')
- Dance Hall Time (Various Artistes LP, front sleeve)Wilfred Limonious (signed 'Limonious'); producers Ossie Thomas and Phillip Morgan · 1986 · Discogs release database (photographs of an original copy; no holding institution traced)
- Old V/s Young (Various Artists LP, front sleeve)Wilfred Limonious (signed 'Limonious'); producers Ossie Thomas, Prince Jazzbo and Rodguel 'Blackbeard' Sinclair · 1987 · Discogs release database (scan of an original copy; no holding institution traced)
06