Stylogeny combining Amazigh Sign System × Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

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Style combination · Contrasts

Amazigh Sign System × Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

Bògòlan leaves pale signs in a dark mud-painted ground, while Beni Ouarain rugs and Kabyle pots draw dark signs on cream wool or white slip. Black-ground Amazigh weavings, such as Middle Atlas tent bands and the akhnif cape, are the exception; there, tell the two apart by the stepped, woven construction rather than by the ground.

From the research on Amazigh Sign System & Tifinagh

Mix them and make something Amazigh Sign System Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

FiestaAmazigh Sign System × Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Amazigh Sign System, their arrangement from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth, the finish from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Amazigh Sign System & Tifinagh Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

Type from Amazigh Sign System
Colour from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth
Form from Amazigh Sign System
Composition from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth
Surface from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

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The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Amazigh Sign System

Fiesta

Jost; Amazigh Sign System used IRCAM standard Neo-Tifinagh and Noto Sans Tifinagh

Text · Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

The mud-dyed cotton cloth of the Bamana and other Malian peoples, in which the ground rather than the motif is painted: cloth dyed yellow with n'gallama leaves is covered around each sign with fermented iron-rich mud, and the unpainted signs are then bleached pale. Worn by hunters and by women after initiation and childbirth, it became a national emblem of Mali from about 1980 and spread through Groupe Bogolan Kasobané, Chris Seydou's fashion and stencilled export cloth.

Archivo; Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth used Bògòlan sign repertoire used as a glyph set and Irregular hand-painted sans capitals when text must accompany bògòlan-derived graphics

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth, with a counter-accent from Amazigh Sign System. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Amazigh Sign System & Tifinagh Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

  • #2b1d14 ground · 36%
  • #e9dcc0 ink · 14%
  • #c99a3b accent · 18%
  • #8c4a2a accent · 14%
  • #1f4f8f accent · 10%
  • #3f7a4a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #2b1d14;
  --ink: #e9dcc0;
  --accent-1: #c99a3b;
  --accent-2: #8c4a2a;
  --accent-3: #1f4f8f;
  --accent-4: #3f7a4a;
  --font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Amazigh Sign System & Tifinagh: These signs belong to living Amazigh communities, and much of the repertoire is women's work: weavers, potters, and older women whose facial tattoos belong to a fading practice that many Moroccans now regard as sacrilegious. Signs and jewellery are worn for protection against the evil eye and to mark region, tribe and life stage, so do not merge regional motifs into a generic 'Berber' pattern or put tattoo signs on throwaway goods. The best-known photographs of Kabyle women's facial tattoos, Marc Garanger's portraits of 1960, were made by a French army conscript for compulsory identity cards, with the women made to unveil; do not use them as neutral pattern sources, and prefer documentation made with the women's consent or by Amazigh researchers. The choice of script is itself political: IRCAM's 2003 adoption of Neo-Tifinagh was a palace compromise that many Amazigh activists criticised, most Moroccan speakers and Kabyle writers use Latin script, and Tuareg Tifinagh is its own living variant. Have any Tifinagh text spelled and checked by a speaker and set it in a proper Unicode font rather than inventing pseudo-letters. The yaz and the Amazigh flag are political emblems of the Amazigh identity movement, and the flag was banned in Algeria during the 2019 Hirak. Much historical Moroccan and Kabyle 'Berber' silver was made by Jewish silversmiths, and Tuareg pieces by Tuareg smiths: credit them accurately, commission and credit Amazigh weavers, potters and type designers, and do not sell printed 'Berber' rug pattern as hand-woven.

Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth: Bògòlan motifs carry named references to Bamana history, proverbs, myths and animals such as the crocodile, and cloths worn by hunters and by women after initiation or childbirth were believed to protect and to absorb dangerous forces. Learn what a pattern refers to before using it, do not sell printed 'mudcloth' pattern as hand-made bògòlan, and commission, credit or collaborate with Malian makers (for example in Kolokani and Bamako workshops) rather than copying their cloths.

04

The two styles

An ornate geometric poster centers a black Amazigh symbol inside an ochre sunburst, surrounded by symmetrical triangles, diamonds, stepped shapes, dots, and crosses. Red, blue, green, ochre, and black motifs fill a cream, paper-textured field with patterned borders and a line of Tifinagh lettering across the top. c. 0–present · Middle East & North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa Amazigh Sign System & Tifinagh The visual language shared by Amazigh communities from the Rif, Atlas and Kabylie to the Aurès and the Tuareg Sahara. Women weave a common repertoire of geometric signs (lozenges, chevrons, triangles, crosses, zigzags, dots) into rugs and capes, paint it on pottery and tattoo it on the face, and smiths, many of them Jewish in Morocco and Kabylie until the 1950s, cast and engrave it in silver. Its script, Tifinagh, descends from Libyco-Berber writing. Since 2003 Neo-Tifinagh has marked Amazigh identity on Moroccan public signs; the red yaz ⵣ has stood on the Amazigh flag since 1970. Vertical bands of repeating cream, ochre and rust geometric motifs cover a dark brown background. Diamonds, chevrons, crosses, triangles, dotted grids and striped almond shapes have slightly irregular, painted edges. 1900–present · Sub-Saharan Africa Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth The mud-dyed cotton cloth of the Bamana and other Malian peoples, in which the ground rather than the motif is painted: cloth dyed yellow with n'gallama leaves is covered around each sign with fermented iron-rich mud, and the unpainted signs are then bleached pale. Worn by hunters and by women after initiation and childbirth, it became a national emblem of Mali from about 1980 and spread through Groupe Bogolan Kasobané, Chris Seydou's fashion and stencilled export cloth.

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More combinations

With Amazigh Sign System

With Bògòlanfini Mud Cloth

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