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 Lubok: Drop perspective, range the figures across, fill the rest with words
- Type
- Set in Lubok's manner (Hand-written text poured around the picture and framed as one unit), and let ROSTA Windows's lettering (Short rhymed lines in large hand lettering, one line to a panel) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Lubok's material (Thick woodcut outlines with red, yellow and green washed past the line); bring in exactly one thing from ROSTA Windows (Cut card stencils printed fast in two colors, red and black).
- Colour
- Build on #eee6cb, #ce5740, #080303 and admit one accent from #fbf5da, #e24833, #2d2723.
Where they fight
- Lubok and ROSTA Windows share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over.
- Lubok and ROSTA Windows stand roughly 269 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Lubok Tidying the outline and keeping the color inside it removes the misregistration and rough hand that carried the warmth of a popular print.
- ROSTA Windows Refining the shapes into one finished picture loses the speed of printing and pasting the same day, leaving the look without its function.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Lubok (style, 17th–19th century) and their accent from ROSTA Windows (style, 1919–1921). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Lubok exists for: picture books and packaging where a told story shares the sheet with words, or editorial illustration carrying satire in a deliberately plain voice. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Lubok - Thick outlines - Flat hand-coloring - Image and text together - Satire and story Composition: Drop perspective, range the figures across, fill the rest with words. Type and lettering: Hand-written text poured around the picture and framed as one unit. ## Accent comes from ROSTA Windows, used sparingly - Simple stencil shapes - Storytelling in panels - Red and black as signal colors - Rhymed captions Let one material quality come from it: Cut card stencils printed fast in two colors, red and black. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #eee6cb, carry the structure in #ce5740 and #080303, and let a single accent come from #e24833. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, intimacy, nostalgia, rebellion, exhilaration, technique. ## Where they fight - Lubok and ROSTA Windows share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over. - Lubok and ROSTA Windows stand roughly 269 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Lubok: Tidying the outline and keeping the color inside it removes the misregistration and rough hand that carried the warmth of a popular print. - ROSTA Windows: Refining the shapes into one finished picture loses the speed of printing and pasting the same day, leaving the look without its function. ## 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
- Lubok 17th–19th century / Style / Popular Prints
Russia's popular print: thick outlines, flat hand-coloring, image and text sharing the sheet, circulating sacred stories and satire cheaply. The avant-garde rediscovered it in the 20th century as Russia's native form.
- ROSTA Windows 1919–1921 / Style / Printmaking and Social Movements
During the civil war the ROSTA news agency pasted stencil-replicated poster serials in the windows of empty shops. Mayakovsky and others turned the news into comic-strip panels of simple shapes and rhymed verse, inventing the prototype of rapid-response graphics.
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