Stylogenyin the style of Vietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)

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Pictorial & machine age · 1945–present · Southeast Asia

Vietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)

Also known as Tranh cổ động, Tranh tuyên truyền, Vietnamese socialist poster

The state poster art of Vietnam from the 1945 August Revolution to today. Where Soviet and Chinese socialist realism model heroic figures in full colour, Vietnamese posters flatten soldiers, militia women, farmers, weapons and crops into silhouettes and blocky planes in one to three tones, usually red, yellow and black. Originals were cut in wood during the resistance, then hand-painted in gouache or tempera, often over stencils, with a slogan in Quốc ngữ capitals.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices, until its AI image is made.

Use it with care

These are state propaganda of a one-party government that still commissions them, and wartime sheets celebrate shooting down American aircraft and defeating enemy soldiers; present them as historical sources with context, not as kitsch decor. Many posters sold to tourists are recent repaintings or reproductions, so date and attribute carefully, and keep Vietnamese diacritics intact in any slogan.

01

How it works

  • Reduce figures, weapons and crops to flat silhouettes and blocky planes in one to three tones.
  • Use the flag's red field and yellow star as the ground, with black, gold or white for figures.
  • Paint each original by hand in gouache or tempera, often over a stencil, and accept brush texture and copy-to-copy variation.
  • Set a short slogan in hand-lettered Quốc ngữ capitals, diacritics intact, in a band at the top or bottom.
  • Build the message from emblematic shorthand: a rifle guarding a sickle and rice sheaves, a militia woman, a bumper harvest.

Việt Minh resistance zones from 1945, then Hanoi under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, where a Propaganda Posters Bureau and, from 1966, a Central Workshop for Propaganda Paintings coordinated production; nationwide after 1975

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
Gradients, Illusion of depth, Straight photography, Non-representational, Ironic & self-aware, Abundant decoration, Experimental & distorted, Gloss & highlights

Palette

  • #d22a21
  • #f3c623
  • #171717
  • #efe3c6
  • #3b7a3e

Typefaces

  • Hand-painted Quốc ngữ condensed sans capitals with stacked diacritics

  • Stencilled block capitals for slogan bands

Known for

  • Central Workshop for Propaganda Paintings, Hanoi

    established 1966

  • Dương Ánh, Sỹ Thiết and Minh Phương

    poster painters trained at the Indochina College of Fine Arts

  • 'Uncle President, this year the harvest is a bumper one'

    c. 1955, offset lithograph; Australian War Memorial C1121249

  • Dogma Collection, Ho Chi Minh City, 'Crafting a Message'

    Vietnamese posters 1945–1985

  • David Heather and Sherry Buchanan, Vietnam Posters

    The David Heather Collection (Prestel, 2009)

03

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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 styleVietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)1945–present · Southeast Asia

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. Quarta Gallery, 'Vietnamese posters of the socialist era' (https://www.quartagallery.ru/articles-ru/vetnamskie-postery-vremen-socializma/?sl=en)
  2. Saigoneer, 'Resilience, resistance reflected in propaganda art exhibition Crafting a Message' (Dogma Collection)
  3. Australian War Memorial, collection C1121249 (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1121249)

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