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 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 #e1d7d3, #d5971f, #1d1b1d and admit one accent from #fafcfb, #81827e, #0d0c0c.
Where they fight
- Heraldry and Kamon both belong to Symbol Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Heraldry and Kamon stand roughly 356 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
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
Produce four original images that take their structure from Heraldry (style, 12th century–) and their accent from Kamon (style, Heian period–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Heraldry exists for: arms for schools and clubs that must explain their origin and rank, or expressing a merger or a succession through division and combination. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Heraldry - Limited tincture colors - The grammar of shield divisions - Describability in blazon - Stylized animal poses 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. ## Accent comes from Kamon, used sparingly - Geometry within the circle - Balance in black-white reversal - Extreme abstraction of nature - Compass-and-ruler construction Let one material quality come from it: Two values only, details thickened to survive resist dyeing. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e1d7d3, carry the structure in #d5971f and #1d1b1d, and let a single accent come from #81827e. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, luxury, nostalgia, calm. ## Where they fight - Heraldry and Kamon both belong to Symbol Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. - Heraldry and Kamon stand roughly 356 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - 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. ## 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
- 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.
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