Grapus
グラピュス / 1970–1991 / Style / Regional Graphics
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.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Rough hand-drawn lettering
- Splatter and graffiti
- Interventions on photographs
- Anonymous collective authorship
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
Use this style
Take the compact brief into a project or hand the structured version to an AI tool.
Detailed guidance and sourcesProduction rules, reference works, comparisons, research and citation formats
Dictionary entry
- Type
- Headlines written directly with brush or marker, slant and bleed kept
- Composition
- A large photograph beneath, lettering and scrawl laid over the margins
- Material
- Splatter and finger marks kept in the plate, plus one fluorescent ink
- 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.
- Further study
- Pierre Bernard / lessons from the Polish poster school / the later Atelier de Création Graphique
Related entries
- Polish Poster School (ポーランド・ポスター派)Same Regional Graphics lineage.Compare Grapus and Polish Poster School
- Punk (パンク)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.Compare Grapus and Punk
More from Regional Graphics
Continue through styles in the same Regional Graphics family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Ghanaian Movie Poster (ガーナ手描き映画ポスター)Shared effects: Play / Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- Chicha Poster (チチャ・ポスター)Shared effects: Exhilaration / Rebellion / Play.
- Pacific Punk Wave (パシフィック・パンク・ウェーブ)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration / Play.
Browse all Regional Graphics entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/grapus
- Markdown
- [Grapus — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/grapus)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/grapus">Grapus — IndexStyle</a>