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 DIN 1451: Information stacked flush left, arrows aligned to cap height
- Type
- Set in DIN 1451's manner (Condensed or standard width chosen by panel, spacing kept tight), and let U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)'s lettering (Public Sans throughout, body text at 16px or larger, lines held between 45 and 90 characters, line height at least 1.5 for long passages.) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in DIN 1451's material (White and black knocked out of reflective sheet or enamel); bring in exactly one thing from U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) (Deep blue #005EA2 leads and red #D83933 follows, with grays taken only from the fixed run between #1B1B1B and #F0F0F0, never mixed in between.).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #005EA2, #D83933, #162E51.
Where they fight
- Roughly 84 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- DIN 1451 Borrowing it for long body copy because the impersonality appeals gives the text a hard even texture that resists being read through.
- U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) Add one in between value to fill a gap in the scale and the system is gone, because every page then starts inventing measurements of its own.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from DIN 1451 (Style, 1931–) and its accent from U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) (Style, 2015–). Structural cues: An engineered skeleton; Unity as standard; The language of road signs; Trust in impersonality. Accent cues, used sparingly: Body text runs large and lines wrap somewhere between 45 and 90 characters; The same two colors recur across agencies, a deep blue #005EA2 and an alert red #D83933; Spacing never lands on an arbitrary number, only on steps of a fixed scale; Public Sans carries everything from headings to body text, wide set and free of quirks. Composition: Information stacked flush left, arrows aligned to cap height. Type and lettering: Condensed or standard width chosen by panel, spacing kept tight. Let one material quality come from the second style: Deep blue #005EA2 leads and red #D83933 follows, with grays taken only from the fixed run between #1B1B1B and #F0F0F0, never mixed in between.. Mood: Trust, Technology, Calm. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #005EA2, #D83933, #162E51. 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
- DIN 1451 1931– / Style / Public Design
Engineering lettering laid down as a German industrial standard. Its skeleton can be redrawn with ruler and compass, which unified road signs and factory markings, and the trust that came from having no personality is what designers later came to love.
- U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) 2015– / Style / Design Systems
The design language of United States federal websites, published by the General Services Administration. Color, spacing, and type size are quantized into a limited set of discrete options instead of the open range CSS allows, and the system ships Public Sans, a neutral face drawn from Libre Franklin, so that every agency site speaks in the same voice.
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