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 Concrete Poetry: Place words on a grid so reading can start from any direction
- Type
- Set in Concrete Poetry's manner (One face at one size, emphasis from position and repetition only), and let Graphic Notation's lettering (Few kinds of sign, with the range where one shape holds one meaning) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Concrete Poetry's material (White paper and one black ink, quality carried by register and margin); bring in exactly one thing from Graphic Notation (Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean).
- Colour
- Build on #f1eee5, #74716a, #151515 and admit one accent from #ffffff, #fb6546, #343636.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Concrete Poetry When making a shape comes first, the meaning of the words stops answering their position, and the piece is only letters poured into a picture.
- Graphic Notation Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Concrete Poetry (layout, 1950s–1970s) and their accent from Graphic Notation (style, 1950s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Concrete Poetry exists for: print pieces where a few words carry the reading speed and the pauses, or exhibitions and wall works that take language itself as the subject. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Concrete Poetry - Repeated words - Shapes made of letters - Large blanks - Dismantled reading order Composition: Place words on a grid so reading can start from any direction. Type and lettering: One face at one size, emphasis from position and repetition only. ## Accent comes from Graphic Notation, used sparingly - The staff abandoned - Instruction by shape and line - Pages open to interpretation - The score as artwork Let one material quality come from it: Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f1eee5, carry the structure in #74716a and #151515, and let a single accent come from #fb6546. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, calm, play. ## What goes wrong - Concrete Poetry: When making a shape comes first, the meaning of the words stops answering their position, and the piece is only letters poured into a picture. - Graphic Notation: Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle. ## 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
- Concrete Poetry 1950s–1970s / Layout / Experimental Typography
Treats the placement, repetition, blank space and sound of words as the poem itself, not only what they mean.
- Graphic Notation 1950s– / Style / Notation Systems
The scores Cage and Cardew drew when they abandoned the staff: shapes, lines, map-like pages. Opening performance to interpretation rather than instruction, the score itself became visual art.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=concrete-poetry+graphic-notation