Print and reproduction looks

Eleven printing processes, and the wording that gets what each one does to ink.

These are not styles anybody designed. They are what a machine does to an image: how many inks it can lay down, how badly they line up, what texture the paper leaves behind. Ask for a process rather than a look and the poster gets a physical quality that no amount of styling adds, because the imperfections come from somewhere.

Ink laid down badly on purpose

4

Cheap duplicators and few inks. Misregistration, grain and visible dots are the whole appeal.

Risograph: Two or three fluorescent inks, misregistered, with grain and visible overprint.

Two or three fluorescent inks, misregistered, with grain and visible overprint.

Screenprint Pop: Thick opaque ink in big flat areas, with hard edges and one layer slightly out.

Screenprint Pop

Thick opaque ink in big flat areas, with hard edges and one layer slightly out.

Halftone Newsprint: A photograph reduced to coarse dots on grey paper, with ink bleeding into the fibres.

Halftone Newsprint

A photograph reduced to coarse dots on grey paper, with ink bleeding into the fibres.

Mimeograph: Faint purple ink on cheap paper, blotchy, with letters that have started to fill in.

Faint purple ink on cheap paper, blotchy, with letters that have started to fill in.

Pressed, bitten and exposed

3

Processes that leave a physical mark: type pushed into paper, lines bitten into metal, and paper turned blue by the sun.

Stamp and Letterpress: Bold inked shapes with slight imperfections, pressed into thick paper you can feel.

Stamp and Letterpress

Bold inked shapes with slight imperfections, pressed into thick paper you can feel.

Etching and Engraving: Tone built entirely from fine parallel lines, the way a banknote is drawn.

Etching and Engraving

Tone built entirely from fine parallel lines, the way a banknote is drawn.

Cyanotype: White lines on deep Prussian blue, with brush marks at the edge of the coating.

White lines on deep Prussian blue, with brush marks at the edge of the coating.

Few inks, drawn by hand

4

Where the constraint is not the machine but the decision: scissors instead of a pen, one accent colour, or a single lurid scene.

Cut Paper: Organic shapes cut with scissors, laid flat on colour, with the scissor marks left in.

Organic shapes cut with scissors, laid flat on colour, with the scissor marks left in.

Botanical Scientific Illustration: A specimen drawn precisely, labelled, and laid out like a page from a reference book.

Botanical Scientific Illustration

A specimen drawn precisely, labelled, and laid out like a page from a reference book.

Monochrome and One Accent: Black, white, and one loud colour used only where it has to be looked at.

Monochrome and One Accent

Black, white, and one loud colour used only where it has to be looked at.

Penny Dreadful: A lurid wood-engraved scene at the worst possible moment, under a screaming title.

A lurid wood-engraved scene at the worst possible moment, under a screaming title.

Make one of them

Copy a prompt into an image model and pay for that one run. No subscription.

Open an image model

Other style groups

Graphic design movementsEighteen movements, and the wording that gets the look of each one.18 design movements Art movements as postersTwenty-one movements, each written as a poster the movement might have printed.21 art movements Handmade and folkNine ways to make a poster that looks like a person made it, not a studio.9 handmade looks Place and eraFourteen national and period styles, each with the rules that made it local.14 regional styles Propaganda and protestSeven political traditions, and the visual rules each one used to move people.7 political traditions Music scenesTen scenes, and the graphic rules each one used to say who the night was for.10 music scenes Screen and digitalTen looks that came from a screen, and the wording that gets each one.10 digital looks

Cinematic techniquesShooting a video rather than printing a poster? The same reference, for the camera.

A process brings its own imperfections: misregistration, grain, an impression in the paper, a coarse dot. Those details are what make a poster look physical, and they are very hard to add convincingly after the fact.