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 Devětsil: The spread banded horizontally, photograph and type staggered across it
- Type
- Set in Devětsil's manner (Geometric sans broken like verse lines, numerals and signs read as words), and let The New Typography's lettering (One sans in two weights, with hierarchy carried by size alone) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Devětsil's material (Primary flats with thin black rules, collage edges left showing); bring in exactly one thing from The New Typography (Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a.
Where they fight
- Devětsil and The New Typography share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over.
Caution
- Devětsil Borrowing only the constructivist signs loses the poem and leaves a book decorated with geometry that means nothing.
- The New Typography When asymmetry becomes the aim in itself the reading order is never settled, and the page ends up harder to read than the ornamented one it replaced.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Devětsil (Style, 1920–1931) and its accent from The New Typography (Layout, 1920s–1930s). Structural cues: Picture poems; Photographs fused with type; Geometry used lyrically; Constructivist bookbinding. Accent cues, used sparingly: Asymmetry; Sans-serif type; Photography; Functional white space. Composition: The spread banded horizontally, photograph and type staggered across it. Type and lettering: Geometric sans broken like verse lines, numerals and signs read as words. Let one material quality come from the second style: Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament. Mood: Play, Rebellion, Calm, Trust, Technology, Exhilaration. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a. 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
- Devětsil 1920–1931 / Style / Publishing and Editing
Teige gave the Czech avant-garde group its picture poem. Setting photograph, type and sign together as verse, the group's lyrical strain of constructivism turned interwar Prague into a laboratory of book design.
- The New Typography 1920s–1930s / Layout / Experimental Typography
Turned printed matter into rational information structure through asymmetry, sans-serifs, photography and functional hierarchy.
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