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 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 #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a.
Where they fight
These two are already listed as related, 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
An original image that takes its structure from Merz (Style, 1919–1948) and its accent from The New Typography (Layout, 1920s–1930s). Structural cues: Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers; Fragments of torn type and numerals; Diagonal axes of construction; The colour of aged paper. Accent cues, used sparingly: Asymmetry; Sans-serif type; Photography; Functional white space. Composition: Tilted constructive axes locking scraps into an abstract armature. Type and lettering: Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals. Let one material quality come from the second style: Black and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornament. Mood: Technology, Nostalgia, Rebellion, Trust, Exhilaration. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #eee9dc, #d22f26, #1e1d1a. 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
- 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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