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 Merz: Tilted constructive axes locking scraps into an abstract armature
- Type
- Set in Merz's manner (Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals), 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 Merz's material (Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges); bring in exactly one thing from The New Typography (Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament).
- Colour
- Build on #dbd9c9, #ab3120, #25191e and admit one accent from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Merz Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition.
- 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 Merz (style, 1919–1948) and their accent from The New Typography (layout, 1920s–1930s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Merz exists for: collage-driven editorial and zine layouts built from printed ephemera, or craft-minded branding that composes real tickets, stamps and offcuts. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Merz - Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers - Fragments of torn type and numerals - Diagonal axes of construction - The colour of aged paper Composition: Tilted constructive axes locking scraps into an abstract armature. Type and lettering: Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals. ## 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 #dbd9c9, carry the structure in #ab3120 and #25191e, 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: technique, nostalgia, rebellion, trust, exhilaration. ## What goes wrong - Merz: Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition. - 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
- Merz 1919–1948 / Style / Avant-garde
A one-man movement flying as its banner a single word clipped from a bank advertisement, building compositions out of nothing but discards such as tickets, wrapping paper and torn type. Treating rubbish as structural material, and placing typographic fragments abstractly, it settled the vocabulary of collage and magazine 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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