Grapus vs Punk
グラピュス / パンク
Grapus comes from Regional Graphics and Punk from Counterculture. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Grapus
The French collective was born out of May '68. Hand-scrawled letters, splatters and graffiti over photographs brought a festive roughness to posters for politics, theater and city halls, and made resistance to polish into a style.
Punk
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A DIY objection to the authority of the tidy, made by cutting, pasting and dirtying.
| Grapus | Punk | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1970–1991 | 1970s–1980s |
| Family | Regional Graphics | Counterculture |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Rough hand-drawn lettering / Splatter and graffiti / Interventions on photographs / Anonymous collective authorship | Cut-and-paste letters / Photocopier noise / Handwriting / Ragged placement |
| Best used for | Posters for rallies and unions that shout in the voice of those involved · Cultural programmes for public theatres and city halls needing their stiffness broken | Voicing dissent against the rules · Giving events and communities a raw voice |
| Type | Headlines written directly with brush or marker, slant and bleed kept | Mix newsprint letters, handwriting and stamps |
| Composition | A large photograph beneath, lettering and scrawl laid over the margins | Deliberate misalignment and overlap; disturb even the margins |
| Material | Splatter and finger marks kept in the plate, plus one fluorescent ink | Copier paper, tears, black plus a warning color |
| Caution | Manufacturing the roughness with a filter removes the necessity of the hand, and what remains is a costume of political heat that trivializes the subject. | Borrowed rebellion is hollow. Decide what you are protesting first. |