Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, 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 Ultraísmo's lettering (Wood and metal display type mixed on one page, with lines set at competing angles.) 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 Ultraísmo (Letterpress on cheap magazine stock, with a woodcut block dropped straight into the text area.).
- Colour
- Build on #f1eee5, #74716a, #151515 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Experimental Typography, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
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.
- Ultraísmo Angling type as a flourish over a conventional column: the angle came from setting language as an image, and without that reason it is styling only.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Concrete Poetry (Layout, 1950s–1970s) and its accent from Ultraísmo (Layout, 1918–1925). Structural cues: Repeated words; Shapes made of letters; Large blanks; Dismantled reading order. Accent cues, used sparingly: Diagonal type and open space; Woodcut abstractions as illustration; Short lines with the metaphor compressed; The magazine as the form of publication. 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. Let one material quality come from the second style: Letterpress on cheap magazine stock, with a woodcut block dropped straight into the text area.. Mood: Rebellion, Calm, Play, Futurism, Technology. Color: build on #f1eee5, #74716a, #151515 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. 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.
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.
- Ultraísmo 1918–1925 / Layout / Experimental Typography
A Spanish-language avant-garde that called for poetry compressed into metaphor and stripped of ornament. On the magazine page its type ran diagonally, woodcut abstractions were let in among the lines, and the poem was set as a plate in its own right. The earliest experimental typography to travel back and forth between Iberia and South America.
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