# Merz × The New Typography — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=merz+new-typography
# Merz carries the structure. The New Typography appear as accents, each further back than the last.
# Style descriptors only. Never imitates a specific artist, studio, brand or work.

An original image that takes its structure from Merz (Style, 1919–1948) and its accent from The New Typography (Layout, 1920s–1930s). Structural cues: Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers; Fragments of torn type and numerals; Diagonal axes of construction; The colour of aged paper. Accent cues, used sparingly: Asymmetry; Sans-serif type; Photography; Functional white space. Composition: Tilted constructive axes locking scraps into an abstract armature. Type and lettering: Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals. Let one material quality come from the second style: Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament. Mood: Technology, Nostalgia, Rebellion, Trust, Exhilaration. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.

# Cautions carried from each entry
# - Merz: Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition.
# - The New Typography: When asymmetry becomes the aim in itself the reading order is never settled, and the page ends up harder to read than the ornamented one it replaced.

# Design specs: https://indexstyle.org/styles/merz/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/new-typography/design.md