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 Heraldry: The shield divided by the grammar, one charge to each part
- Type
- Set in Heraldry's manner (Motto lettering sits outside the arms, never on the shield itself), and let Kamon's lettering (No letters inside the crest, and beside a name a light mincho balances it) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Heraldry's material (Metals and a short list of colors, color never laid on color); bring in exactly one thing from Kamon (Two values only, details thickened to survive resist dyeing).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Symbol Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Heraldry Choosing tinctures by eye breaks the rule about metal on color, and the result can no longer be described as arms at all.
- Kamon Drifting toward realism by drawing petal counts and leaf veins collapses the crest into a black blob at business-card size.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Heraldry (Style, 12th century–) and its accent from Kamon (Style, Heian period–). Structural cues: Limited tincture colors; The grammar of shield divisions; Describability in blazon; Stylized animal poses. Accent cues, used sparingly: Geometry within the circle; Balance in black-white reversal; Extreme abstraction of nature; Compass-and-ruler construction. Composition: The shield divided by the grammar, one charge to each part. Type and lettering: Motto lettering sits outside the arms, never on the shield itself. Let one material quality come from the second style: Two values only, details thickened to survive resist dyeing. Mood: Trust, Luxury, Nostalgia, Calm. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 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
- Heraldry 12th century– / Style / Symbol Systems
Europe's armorial system, born from the need to tell one man from another on the battlefield. Exact description in the language of blazon, the rule of a limited set of tinctures and a grammar of division and combination add up to a design system that has run for 800 years.
- Kamon Heian period– / Style / Symbol Systems
Japan's crest system that geometrizes plants, animals and objects with compass and line alone. Some twenty thousand patterns designed in black-and-white reversal completed the scalable mark centuries before logo design.
Share this pairing:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=heraldry+kamon