80s NYC Hip Hop Flyer
- Buddy Esquire style
- Bronx party flyer
- block party flyer
Hand-drawn symmetrical borders, airbrushed display lettering, and a full bill in black and white.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
The surprise of these flyers is how formal they are. People expect graffiti, and what they get is symmetry, ruled borders and Art Deco framing drawn by hand with a Rapidograph.
That care is the point. A flyer had to make a school gym look like an event worth paying at the door for, and neatness did that.
How it works
Build it symmetrically. An ornate hand-drawn border, often Art Deco or geometric, frames the whole sheet.
Draw the title in large airbrushed display lettering with a 3D extrusion and a starburst behind it.
List every DJ and MC in a neat centred column, with hand-ruled lines throughout and a few small drawn icons. Photocopy it in black ink onto coloured paper, and put the price at the door in the lower panel.
When to use it
Use it for a hip hop night, a block party, a youth project, a record fair, a community event, an 80s night.
Leave it alone when you want something loose. The whole charm is that it is carefully drawn.
Told apart from its neighbours
Graffiti is sprayed and illegible on purpose. These flyers are drawn with a ruler and perfectly legible.
Punk flyers are torn, skewed and photocopied badly. These are symmetrical and photocopied carefully.
Sound system flyers are the Caribbean equivalent, in full colour with competing typefaces.
Where it was used
Buddy Esquire, the self-titled Flyer King, drew hundreds of Bronx party flyers between 1978 and 1984, and Phase 2 drew many of the rest. The Cornell Hip Hop Collection holds the largest archive of them.
- Buddy Esquire
- Phase 2
- Bronx and Harlem party flyers
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own event, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
poster for <event>, early 1980s New York hip hop party flyer in the manner of Buddy Esquire, strict symmetrical layout with an ornate hand-drawn Art Deco border, the title in large hand-drawn airbrushed display lettering with a 3D extrusion and a starburst, every DJ and MC listed in a neat centred column, small hand-drawn icons, black ink photocopied on coloured paper, hand-ruled lines throughout, a small cut-out photograph, <date, time and place> in the lower panel with a door price
What goes wrong
The model returns a graffiti poster. Ask for a strict symmetrical layout with an ornate hand-drawn Art Deco border and a neat centred column of names.
The second failure is colour printing. Say black ink photocopied onto coloured paper.
Leave out
colour printing, asymmetry, casual layout, photographic backgrounds, modern type
Watch for
It is symmetrical and careful. Hip hop flyers were drawn with a ruler, not thrown together.
Questions
Print it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
Next to it in flyers printed for one night
