Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow African Barbershop Sign: Grid of equal frames with every face drawn at the same angle
- Type
- Set in African Barbershop Sign's manner (Number each cut and paint only the shop name large by hand), and let Ghost Signs's lettering (Redraw period shop lettering by hand, with shadowed letters and ornament rules) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in African Barbershop Sign's material (Enamel on plywood, few colors, black outlines holding it together); bring in exactly one thing from Ghost Signs (Brushed straight onto brick, assuming the least stable colors fade first).
- Colour
- Build on #f3f2e8, #58a488, #191511 and admit one accent from #a3988a, #7f3b27, #241a18.
Where they fight
- African Barbershop Sign and Ghost Signs both belong to Signage and Display, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- African Barbershop Sign Individualizing the faces as portraits breaks the catalogue function, and customers can no longer use the board to order.
- Ghost Signs Applying an even wash of distress falsifies the direction of fading and the order of overpainting, and the intended age reads as fake.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from African Barbershop Sign (style, 1950s–) and their accent from Ghost Signs (style, 1880s–1950s / rediscovery). ## What to make Make the kind of thing African Barbershop Sign exists for: showing the choices in pictures for customers who cannot read the text, or shopfront signage hand painted to survive sun and rain. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from African Barbershop Sign - Grids of haircut samples - Flat repeated faces - Numbers and hand lettering - Enamel on plywood Composition: Grid of equal frames with every face drawn at the same angle. Type and lettering: Number each cut and paint only the shop name large by hand. ## Accent comes from Ghost Signs, used sparingly - Paint applied straight to brick - Fading and peeling - Craftsman lettering - Layers of overpainting Let one material quality come from it: Brushed straight onto brick, assuming the least stable colors fade first. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f3f2e8, carry the structure in #58a488 and #191511, and let a single accent come from #7f3b27. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: intimacy, play, trust, nostalgia, calm. ## Where they fight - African Barbershop Sign and Ghost Signs both belong to Signage and Display, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - African Barbershop Sign: Individualizing the faces as portraits breaks the catalogue function, and customers can no longer use the board to order. - Ghost Signs: Applying an even wash of distress falsifies the direction of fading and the order of overpainting, and the intended age reads as fake. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- African Barbershop Sign 1950s– / Style / Signage and Display
The hand-painted signboards of West African barbershops: numbered haircut samples in a grid, flat repeated faces sitting between product catalogue and portraiture.
- Ghost Signs 1880s–1950s / rediscovery / Style / Signage and Display
Hand-painted brick-wall advertisements faded by weather. The lettering of the craftsmen called wall dogs, through peeling and fading, is being rediscovered as a stratum of urban memory.
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