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 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 #f4e3d9, #853735, #090d21 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
Produce four original images that take their structure from Devětsil (style, 1920–1931) and their accent from The New Typography (layout, 1920s–1930s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Devětsil exists for: poetry books and literary journals where a visual poem runs beside the text, or spreads pairing photograph and type to be read by association, not explanation. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Devětsil - Picture poems - Photographs fused with type - Geometry used lyrically - Constructivist bookbinding 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. ## Accent comes from The New Typography, used sparingly - Asymmetry - Sans-serif type - Photography - Functional white space Let one material quality come from it: Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f4e3d9, carry the structure in #853735 and #090d21, and let a single accent come from #d22f26. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, rebellion, calm, trust, technique, exhilaration. ## 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. ## What goes wrong - 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. ## 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
- 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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