Movement & Era beginner hostileurgentimprovised

Punk Xerox Cut-Up

Punk Xerox Cut-Up example frame

Ransom-note lettering, blown-out photocopies and visible tape, made fast and cheap on purpose.

What it does

Jamie Reid's sleeve for Never Mind the Bollocks and the fanzine Sniffin' Glue built an aesthetic out of what a photocopier and a newsagent's magazine rack could supply. Letters cut from newsprint at mismatched sizes, high-contrast photocopy that crushes midtones to pure black and white, visible tape and scalpel edges. The cheapness is the argument: it says anyone can do this. Reproducing it cleanly destroys it, because the degradation is not an accident to be corrected but the content itself.

The prompt

A punk fanzine cover for [Subject]. Ransom-note headline, individual letters cut from newsprint and glossy magazines at mismatched sizes and baselines, visible scalpel edges and strips of tape. Third-generation photocopy treatment: midtones crushed out entirely, only pure black and paper white, dust and toner speckle in the gutters. Single misregistered spot colour slapped over part of the image. A4 on cheap copier paper.

Replace [Subject] with what you are shooting. Everything else is deliberate: the gear, stock and lighting are what push a generator towards this look.

Works well in

Midjourney, FLUX, Stable Diffusion

Pairs with

Coarse HalftoneGeneration Loss

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