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 Bauhaus: Treat shapes and letters as the same building blocks
- Type
- Set in Bauhaus's manner (Geometric sans-serif), and let International Style's lettering (Align sans serif signs to the column grid, flush with the wall) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Bauhaus's material (Red, blue and yellow held together by black and off-white); bring in exactly one thing from International Style (Steel and concrete frame, white rendered planes, large sheets of glass).
- Colour
- Build on #eee7d4, #df2c22, #153f8c and admit one accent from #eeece5, #9ca3a5, #252729.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Bauhaus Scattered shapes read as childish. Give every element a job.
- International Style A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Bauhaus (style, 1919–1933) and their accent from International Style (style, 1920s–1960s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Bauhaus exists for: giving an idea a clear, legible form, or bringing intelligence and warmth to education and culture. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Bauhaus - Elementary shapes - Primary colors - Functional beauty - Visible structure Composition: Treat shapes and letters as the same building blocks. Type and lettering: Geometric sans-serif. ## Accent comes from International Style, used sparingly - Rectangular volumes - Glass planes - No ornament - The free plan Let one material quality come from it: Steel and concrete frame, white rendered planes, large sheets of glass. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #eee7d4, carry the structure in #df2c22 and #153f8c, and let a single accent come from #9ca3a5. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, play, calm, futurity. ## What goes wrong - Bauhaus: Scattered shapes read as childish. Give every element a job. - International Style: A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position. ## 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
- Bauhaus 1919–1933 / Style / Functionalism
Makes function and play coexist through the circle, triangle and square.
- International Style 1920s–1960s / Style / Modern Architecture
Strips ornament and aims at a universal architectural language crossing borders: the box, the free plan, steel, concrete and glass.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=bauhaus+international-style