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 Modern American Book Jacket: One shape set off center with generous emptiness around it
- Type
- Set in Modern American Book Jacket's manner (Title in hand lettering beside type, author name kept small), and let Penguin Cover System's lettering (One serif face fixed, size and leading unchanged across every volume) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Modern American Book Jacket's material (Two or three flat inks over the bare paper color); bring in exactly one thing from Penguin Cover System (Ground colors limited to the categories, one paper stock throughout).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Publishing and Editing, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Modern American Book Jacket Choosing an abstract shape without tying it to the book yields an ornament that would fit any title, so the series stops being distinguishable.
- Penguin Cover System Making an exception for each title breaks the premise that the system is the product and the shelf stops reading.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Modern American Book Jacket (Style, 1940s–1950s) and its accent from Penguin Cover System (Style, 1935–). Structural cues: Abstract suggestion of content; Compositions of sign and shape; Hand lettering with type; Series coherence. Accent cues, used sparingly: Color-coded bands; Rigorous composition rules; The Marber grid; Consistency as a series. Composition: One shape set off center with generous emptiness around it. Type and lettering: Title in hand lettering beside type, author name kept small. Let one material quality come from the second style: Ground colors limited to the categories, one paper stock throughout. Mood: Luxury, Calm, Rebellion, Trust, Play. 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
- Modern American Book Jacket 1940s–1950s / Style / Publishing and Editing
The jacket style Lustig built at New Directions: suggestion by sign and abstraction instead of illustration, turning literary covers into small modern artworks and raising postwar American book design.
- Penguin Cover System 1935– / Style / Publishing and Editing
From the tripartite color bands of the first covers through Tschichold's composition rules to Marber's ruled grid, Penguin kept reinventing the cover as a design system. The paperback became a textbook of modern design.
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