Cuban OSPAAAL
- Cuban solidarity poster
- OSPAAAL
- Tricontinental poster
Flat psychedelic colour, a symbolic silhouette and a slogan, printed as a magazine insert.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
Cuban solidarity posters solved a hard problem: speak to people across dozens of countries and languages using one image. The answer was a symbol, flat colour and four words.
The palette is the surprise. Political posters are usually red and black. These are orange, magenta and lime, and that is why they still look modern.
How it works
One symbol, flattened to a single shape with no shading: a fist, a face in profile, a rifle, a map, a dove.
Flat silkscreen colour in hot unexpected combinations, with a large field of one colour behind the symbol.
Set the slogan in bold clean sans across the lower third. Add registration marks at the edge and the fold creases of a magazine insert.
When to use it
Use it for a solidarity event, a fundraiser, a film season, a festival, a campaign launch, a music night, an exhibition.
Leave it alone when the politics would be hollow. These posters supported specific movements and the form still carries that.
Told apart from its neighbours
Atelier Populaire is one black ink on coloured paper, printed overnight. Cuban posters are multi-colour and printed properly.
Psychedelic sixties posters melt their type. These keep it clean and legible in several languages.
Soviet posters paint heroes. Cuban posters use symbols.
Where it was used
OSPAAAL, the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America, was founded in Havana in 1966 and folded a poster into every issue of Tricontinental magazine, which went to over eighty countries. Rene Mederos and Alfredo Rostgaard are among the best known designers.
- OSPAAAL
- Tricontinental magazine
- Rene Mederos
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own event, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
poster for <event>, Cuban OSPAAAL solidarity poster, flat bold silkscreen colour in hot psychedelic combinations of orange magenta turquoise and lime, one symbolic silhouette such as a raised fist a face in profile or a map, simplified to a single flat shape with no shading, a large flat field of one colour behind it, bold clean sans slogan in Spanish across the lower third, small registration marks at the edge, folded crease lines across the sheet, <date, time and place> in a small line at the foot
What goes wrong
The model returns a red and black political poster. Ask for hot psychedelic flat colour in orange, magenta, turquoise and lime.
The second failure is a detailed image. Say one symbolic silhouette flattened to a single shape with no shading.
Leave out
photographic detail, muted colour, shading, clutter, ornate type
Watch for
The fold lines matter. These were posted inside a magazine, and the creases are part of what they look like.
Questions
Print it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
