Vietnamese Graphic Design
15 comments
·February 23, 2025steve_adams_86
One of the things my wife had when we met was a large collection of Vietnamese posters like these, which she framed and hung around the perimeter of our powder room. It’s so cool to see more of it.
I love some of the colour palettes. In particular, the green/orange or green/pink ones. They aren’t entirely unique on their own, but combined with the art style it feels very distinct.
My favourite is one of a woman with a basket of watermelons on her back. The colours are like an intense fiery orange with deep greens and almost blue tones on the melons. I really need to translate the messages on them.
xrd
Wow, this is terrific. I love it. Lots of art online is curated with "traditional" art. This takes cultural movements and finds art associated with those moments. So fascinating!
tyre
I love these types of posters. A couple months ago someone posted prints from Canada's Department of Agriculture. Lots of fun ones there too. Anyone have other examples?
IncreasePosts
You can really see the early 20th c French influence here
mytailorisrich
For some of the 'undated' book covers it is possible to at least assert the year of print because they seem to be limited prints certified with a handwritten note in French.
Fore example on the Khôn Sống Dại Chết book cover it is handwritten "tirage 1000 Saigon le 27/1/34". So it is a 1,000 copy print certified as such on the 27th January 1934.
creer
See also, India hand painted movie posters.
ogou
[flagged]
TomWhitwell
Such a wild take after looking at, for example, a propaganda poster captioned “Work together to develop pig breeding and new varieties of rice” where the artist has decided to make the pigs in question bright purple with yin-yang signs on their backs.
thwg
Rude.
agumonkey
makes me wanna find pre ww2 visual art from there
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B
I wouldn't say it like that, but it represents basic communist-style propaganda until the 80s where they replaced everything with half-naked ladies. It's still interesting from a historical point of view.
rexpop
What a ridiculously narrow perspective. Of course the art is massively influenced by a) Soviet propaganda, and b) communist hegemony, but at the same time every stroke of the pen is a decision by a conscious, thinking individual.
And several of the items—"Love Poems of Hue"—aren't overly propagandistic. So really, you're just dehumanizing an entire people, which is disgusting.
bee_rider
Also a lot of these are stamps and explicit propaganda posters, right? Like what do people expect. Stamps are… I mean, it is cool when a nice picture is used but it isn’t high art right? Some flora or fauna is pretty standard postage stamp fare. And they are well drawn.
Propaganda posters, of course, lean into propagandistic tropes as a language. For propaganda posters they are pretty creative and well drawn. Better than a dozen pictures of Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves.
JusticeJuice
+1
Also, this collection spans much more time than communist Vietnam? 1900-2020s? Weird take.
This is such a great collection!
However, some of the translation is incorrect. For example:
This text:
> Dưới ngọn cờ quang vinh của đảng, nhân dân Nghệ-An Xô Viết anh hùng
Is translated as:
> Under the glorious flag of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the people of Nghe An will crush their American enemies.
But it should be:
> Under the glorious flag of the [Vietnamese Communist] Party, the people of Nghe An are Soviet heroes.
There was no mention of "crush their American enemies" at all.
I would exercise caution and encourage the readers to double check the translation.