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 Mid-century Picture Book: Picture and text swapping sides spread by spread to build page rhythm
- Type
- Set in Mid-century Picture Book's manner (Plain serif set large for the text, hand lettering kept to headings), and let Soviet Picture Book's lettering (Type placed as a compositional element, lines running along the shapes) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Mid-century Picture Book's material (Two or three flat inks overlapped, misregistered edges and paper white kept); bring in exactly one thing from Soviet Picture Book (Two or three lithographic colors, overlaps making the intermediate tones).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
These two are already listed as related, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Mid-century Picture Book Copying the nostalgic palette while rendering figures realistically kills the lightness that flatness and simplification carried.
- Soviet Picture Book Arranging flat shapes without designing the order of the story kills the movement of turning the page, and a child cannot follow it.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Mid-century Picture Book (Style, 1940s–1960s) and its accent from Soviet Picture Book (Style, 1920s–1930s). Structural cues: Flat limited color; The charm of misregistration; Simplified figures; Type and image as one. Accent cues, used sparingly: Constructivist flatness; Machines and labor simplified; Text and image designed as one; Limited lithographic color. Composition: Picture and text swapping sides spread by spread to build page rhythm. Type and lettering: Plain serif set large for the text, hand lettering kept to headings. Let one material quality come from the second style: Two or three lithographic colors, overlaps making the intermediate tones. Mood: Play, Intimacy, Nostalgia, Technology. 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
- Mid-century Picture Book 1940s–1960s / Style / Illustration Styles
The postwar golden age of the picture book: flat limited color unafraid of misregistration, simplified figures and playful unity of type and image bringing modernist form into children's daily lives.
- Soviet Picture Book 1920s–1930s / Style / Publishing and Editing
The children's books of the revolutionary avant-garde: Lebedev and others brought constructivist flatness and simple shapes to storytelling, making cheap lithographed picture books a laboratory of 20th-century book design.
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