ROSTA Windows
ロスタの窓 / 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.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Simple stencil shapes
- Storytelling in panels
- Red and black as signal colors
- Rhymed captions
Best used for
- Serial street posters and wall bulletins that answer events as they happen
- Public notices explaining a situation or a procedure in a few panels
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Short rhymed lines in large hand lettering, one line to a panel
- Composition
- Four to six panels with an obvious reading path from the top left
- Material
- Cut card stencils printed fast in two colors, red and black
- Caution
- Refining the shapes into one finished picture loses the speed of printing and pasting the same day, leaving the look without its function.
- Further study
- Vladimir Mayakovsky / Mikhail Cheremnykh / the speed of stencil replication
Related entries
- Constructivism (構成主義)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.Compare ROSTA Windows and Constructivism
- Lubok (ルボーク)Editorially linked for a useful contrast.Compare ROSTA Windows and Lubok
More from Printmaking and Social Movements
Continue through styles in the same Printmaking and Social Movements family, prioritised by shared effects.
- OSPAAAL Poster (OSPAAAL連帯ポスター)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- Atelier Populaire (アトリエ・ポピュレール)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
- ACT UP Graphics (ACT UPのグラフィック)Shared effects: Rebellion / Exhilaration.
Browse all Printmaking and Social Movements entries
Cite this entry
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- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/rosta-windows
- Markdown
- [ROSTA Windows — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/rosta-windows)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/rosta-windows">ROSTA Windows — IndexStyle</a>