Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow AEG Corporate Identity: Products and advertising built on one grid and one dimensional system
- Type
- Set in AEG Corporate Identity's manner (One typeface fixed as a standard, sizes and margins given as numbers), and let Arts and Crafts's lettering (Serifs or ornamented letters that feel hand-cut) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in AEG Corporate Identity's material (Standard industrial materials, with quality carried by the finish); bring in exactly one thing from Arts and Crafts (Deep indigo, plant-dye tones, off-white; keep the texture of paper and cloth).
- Colour
- Build on #f1eeed, #937e5e, #22231a and admit one accent from #1f3540, #a7a26b, #d9c9a6.
Where they fight
- AEG Corporate Identity and Arts and Crafts share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over.
Caution
- AEG Corporate Identity Reading standardization as sameness, making everything one shape and skipping the argument about quality, which lands in dull mass production.
- Arts and Crafts A floral print alone loses the conviction. Align material, making and a structure that lasts.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from AEG Corporate Identity (style, 1907-1914) and their accent from Arts and Crafts (style, 1860s–1910s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing AEG Corporate Identity exists for: aligning products, printed matter and buildings under one corporate standard, or putting the design criteria for mass production into words a company can share. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from AEG Corporate Identity - Company lettering drawn from geometry - Products built as one family of forms - A gabled front of steel and glass with the ornament taken off - One hand visible from kettle to catalogue Composition: Products and advertising built on one grid and one dimensional system. Type and lettering: One typeface fixed as a standard, sizes and margins given as numbers. ## Accent comes from Arts and Crafts, used sparingly - Repeating plants - Flat contours - Density of handwork - Colors from nature Let one material quality come from it: Deep indigo, plant-dye tones, off-white; keep the texture of paper and cloth. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f1eeed, carry the structure in #937e5e and #22231a, and let a single accent come from #a7a26b. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, technique, futurity, intimacy, luxury, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - AEG Corporate Identity and Arts and Crafts share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over. ## What goes wrong - AEG Corporate Identity: Reading standardization as sameness, making everything one shape and skipping the argument about quality, which lands in dull mass production. - Arts and Crafts: A floral print alone loses the conviction. Align material, making and a structure that lasts. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- AEG Corporate Identity 1907-1914 / Style / Modern Design Movements
Products, factory and printed matter all handed to one architect, so that a company looked as though a single hand had made it. The lettering, objects and buildings Behrens drew for AEG from 1907 became the prototype of corporate design.
- Arts and Crafts 1860s–1910s / Style / Craft Movements
Returns material and handwork to the center of design, joining every detail of daily life under one conviction.
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