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 Dada: Keep one reading path; rotate and sever the rest
- Type
- Set in Dada's manner (Collide weights, directions and cases in one plane), and let Merz's lettering (Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Dada's material (Letterpress black, red, off-white; bind the accidents with repetition); bring in exactly one thing from Merz (Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges).
- Colour
- Build on #efe6d0, #d7362f, #161513 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Avant-garde, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Dada Not decorative messiness. Decide which authority or custom you are objecting to.
- Merz Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Dada (Style, 1916–1920s) and its accent from Merz (Style, 1919–1948). Structural cues: Rotated type; Fragments of sound; Collisions of scale; Unbalanced margins. Accent cues, used sparingly: Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers; Fragments of torn type and numerals; Diagonal axes of construction; The colour of aged paper. Composition: Keep one reading path; rotate and sever the rest. Type and lettering: Collide weights, directions and cases in one plane. Let one material quality come from the second style: Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges. Mood: Rebellion, Play, Exhilaration, Technology, Nostalgia. Color: build on #efe6d0, #d7362f, #161513 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
- Dada 1916–1920s / Style / Avant-garde
Deliberately dislocates meaning and order, making authority itself the material of the joke.
- Merz 1919–1948 / Style / Avant-garde
A one-man movement flying as its banner a single word clipped from a bank advertisement, building compositions out of nothing but discards such as tickets, wrapping paper and torn type. Treating rubbish as structural material, and placing typographic fragments abstractly, it settled the vocabulary of collage and magazine design.
Share this pairing:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=dada+merz