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 Portolan Chart: Several compass roses with straight lines radiating across the sheet
- Type
- Set in Portolan Chart's manner (Names packed perpendicular to the coast, key ports raised in red), and let Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor)'s lettering (Keep labels out of the basemap and add them back as a separate layer only when needed. Use one typeface and change its size by one step per zoom level) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Portolan Chart's material (Black and red on a vellum ground, flags and monsters in open water); bring in exactly one thing from Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) (Draw Toner as two values with no midtone. For Watercolor, scan washes painted on real paper and map them onto tiles through a scripted process, keeping the soft edges and the grain).
- Colour
- Build on #c1bda8, #a64a3c, #1b2c5c and admit one accent from #111111, #7FB0C2, #E5C49F.
Where they fight
- Portolan Chart and Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) stand roughly 760 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Portolan Chart Drawing rhumb lines as pattern while ignoring how they answer the roses gives ornament that no longer looks like an instrument of navigation.
- Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) Lay thin lines and small type over Watercolor and they lose to the soft edges and the paper grain, so nothing stays readable.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Portolan Chart (style, 13th–17th century) and their accent from Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) (style, 2010s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Portolan Chart exists for: books and exhibitions telling the story of routes or trade as a map, or ornamental maps whose real subject is the memory held in place names. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Portolan Chart - Radiating rhumb lines - Names perpendicular to coasts - The vellum ground - Flags and monsters as ornament Composition: Several compass roses with straight lines radiating across the sheet. Type and lettering: Names packed perpendicular to the coast, key ports raised in red. ## Accent comes from Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor), used sparingly - Toner is drawn in black and white with no grey midtones at all - In Watercolor the shore reads as the soft edge of a brush stroke, and the paper texture stays visible as you zoom - Watercolor renders water as blues mixed with turquoise and violet, and roads swing from orange to red brown - Labels, lines and ground are separate layers, so a tile set ships with any of them left off Let one material quality come from it: Draw Toner as two values with no midtone. For Watercolor, scan washes painted on real paper and map them onto tiles through a scripted process, keeping the soft edges and the grain. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #c1bda8, carry the structure in #a64a3c and #1b2c5c, and let a single accent come from #7FB0C2. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: trust, nostalgia, exhilaration, technique, play. ## Where they fight - Portolan Chart and Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) stand roughly 760 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Portolan Chart: Drawing rhumb lines as pattern while ignoring how they answer the roses gives ornament that no longer looks like an instrument of navigation. - Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor): Lay thin lines and small type over Watercolor and they lose to the soft edges and the paper grain, so nothing stays readable. ## 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
- Portolan Chart 13th–17th century / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
A medieval working sea chart, crossed by radiating rhumb lines. Coastlines and place names run precisely along the vellum while flags and monsters fill the empty water, from a time when a map's usefulness and its ornament had not yet parted.
- Stamen Map Styles (Toner, Terrain, Watercolor) 2010s– / Style / Information Design
Stamen Design published three named basemap styles: Toner in high contrast black and white, Terrain built from hill shading and vegetation colour, and Watercolor made of washes with soft edges over paper texture. What changed with them is that the look of a basemap became a style you pick, not a set of colour settings you adjust. Cooper Hewitt acquired Watercolor, which was launched in 2012 and released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.
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