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 ASCII Art: Fix the column width first and hard wrap so the figure holds
- Type
- Set in ASCII Art's manner (Pick a monospace face and measure its line to character ratio first), and let Swiss Punk Typography's lettering (Letterspacing opened in steps, one word repeated at several sizes) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in ASCII Art's material (One color of text, characters ordered from sparse to dense for tone); bring in exactly one thing from Swiss Punk Typography (Layered exposures building halftone and reversal through the film).
- Colour
- Build on #101510, #74d66b, #d9ead4 and admit one accent from #e7e7e7, #fb4c32, #150c06.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- ASCII Art Type and leading differ on the reader's side, so art distributed without a fixed column width collapses into noise somewhere else.
- Swiss Punk Typography Breaking a grid you never built leaves the offsets nothing to measure against, so the rebellion within discipline never happens and only mess remains.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from ASCII Art (technique, 1960s–) and their accent from Swiss Punk Typography (style, 1970s–1980s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing ASCII Art exists for: placing diagrams or titles inside terminals and logs without images, or signatures and distributed files that must work in text only environments. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from ASCII Art - Monospace characters - Character density - Terminal screens - Single color Composition: Fix the column width first and hard wrap so the figure holds. Type and lettering: Pick a monospace face and measure its line to character ratio first. ## Accent comes from Swiss Punk Typography, used sparingly - The grid dismantled - Exploding letterspacing - Stepped compositions - Layered-film textures Let one material quality come from it: Layered exposures building halftone and reversal through the film. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #d9ead4, carry the structure in #74d66b and #101510, and let a single accent come from #fb4c32. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, nostalgia, play, rebellion, exhilaration. ## What goes wrong - ASCII Art: Type and leading differ on the reader's side, so art distributed without a fixed column width collapses into noise somewhere else. - Swiss Punk Typography: Breaking a grid you never built leaves the offsets nothing to measure against, so the rebellion within discipline never happens and only mess remains. ## 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
- ASCII Art 1960s– / Technique / Lettering
Uses limited characters on a monospace grid as pixels, building image and tone from text alone.
- Swiss Punk Typography 1970s–1980s / Style / Experimental Typography
In Basel, the home of Swiss style, Weingart took the grid apart from the inside. Exploded letterspacing, stepped settings and layered film exposures turned rebellion within discipline into New Wave typography.
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