# Talnemokkol (De-squared Hangul) (脱ネモ体)

> Hangul type that gives up fitting each syllable into a square and stacks consonant and vowel as fixed shapes, so height and width change from letter to letter. Ahn Sang-soo's typeface and posters carried the form to a wide audience.

- IndexStyle No.266 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/talnemokkol
- Kind: Style · Family: Type Classification · Era: 1980s-
- Mood: Technique, Rebellion, Trust
- What this family collects: Mostly a chronology of letterform skeletons, from Roman inscriptions to variable fonts and from Mincho to Hangul, with the methods of making and setting type and the foundries that issued it around them.

## Defining characteristics

- Letter outlines breaking out of the square
- Height and width changing letter by letter
- Strokes of even weight, geometric in build
- Lines whose feet do not align

## Best used for

- Headlines and titling where the assembly of Hangul itself is meant to show
- Pages that step away from the default square setting to find another rhythm

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Fix the shapes of consonant and vowel and leave the height and width changing from letter to letter
- Layout & structure: Open the leading to absorb the uneven feet of the lines, and keep the measure short
- Material & texture: Assume large sizes, hold the stroke to one weight, and let the ragged outline show

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #f0ebe0
- The colour it is remembered by: #c6b18d
- Text and outlines: #020202

## What to avoid

At text size and over long passages, the uneven feet of the lines make them waver and reading slows. Keep it to headlines and other places where it is set large.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Letter outlines breaking out of the square
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Height and width changing letter by letter
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Strokes of even weight, geometric in build
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Lines whose feet do not align
- [ ] The layout follows: Open the leading to absorb the uneven feet of the lines, and keep the measure short
- [ ] The lettering follows: Fix the shapes of consonant and vowel and leave the height and width changing from letter to letter
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Assume large sizes, hold the stroke to one weight, and let the ragged outline show
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #f0ebe0 as ground, #c6b18d carrying the style, #020202 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Swiss (スイス・スタイル)** — Puts order front and center and makes the information itself the protagonist. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/swiss
- **Swiss Punk Typography (スイス・パンク・タイポグラフィ)** — In Basel, the home of Swiss style, Weingart took the grid apart from the inside. Exploded letterspacing, stepped settings and layered film exposures turned rebellion within discipline into New Wave typography. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/swiss-punk

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=talnemokkol+swiss

## Further study

- the design thinking of the Hunminjeongeum
- Ahn Sang-soo's talnemokkol
- Hangul lettering culture

## Reference works

- Hunminjeongeum Haerye 1446 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hunminjeongeumhaerye.jpg
- Hunminjeongeum, Haerye section — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hunminjeongeum%20Haerye%2010.jpg
- Alphabet of Corea, 1799 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alphabet%20of%20Corea.jpg

## Source of record

- Victoria and Albert Museum Collections, Ahn Sang-soo, Hollyeora 1 — https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1503026/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/talnemokkol
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/talnemokkol/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)