Style combination · Contrasts
American Mid-Century Modernism × Victorian Letterpress
Many-faced Victorian crowding versus one idea in open space is a clear demonstration of modernist economy.
Mix them and make something American Mid-Century Modernism Victorian Letterpress
01
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.
American Mid-Century Modernism Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type
- Type from Victorian Letterpress
- Colour from American Mid-Century Modernism
- Form from Victorian Letterpress
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American Mid-Century Modernism avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Composition from American Mid-Century Modernism
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Victorian Letterpress avoids dynamic asymmetry: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Surface from Victorian Letterpress
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Victorian Letterpress
Yay!
Abril Fatface, standing in for Fat face romans (Thorne, Figgins)
Text · American Mid-Century Modernism
The American synthesis of European avant-garde form with wit, pragmatism and commercial clients, led by Paul Rand, Alvin Lustig, Lester Beall, Bradbury Thompson and Saul Bass. Asymmetric layouts, cut-paper and collaged shapes, photomontage, playful hand-drawn marks and a few bright flat colours turned book jackets, magazines, advertising, film titles and corporate work into idea-driven visual puns.
Jost; American Mid-Century Modernism used Futura and Bodoni
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from American Mid-Century Modernism, with a counter-accent from Victorian Letterpress. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
American Mid-Century Modernism Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type
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#f2ede1ground · 36% -
#1a1a1aink · 14% -
#e2a83aaccent · 18% -
#b3322baccent · 14% -
#2f5f8aaccent · 10% -
#5c7a3eaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f2ede1;
--ink: #1a1a1a;
--accent-1: #e2a83a;
--accent-2: #b3322b;
--accent-3: #2f5f8a;
--accent-4: #5c7a3e;
--font-display: "Abril Fatface", serif;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With American Mid-Century Modernism
- Googie & Atomic Age Pairs well · Both share post-war optimism; combine biomorphic cut shapes with Googie starbursts for retro mid-century branding.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Loosen a Swiss grid with Rand-style cut-paper shapes and a visual pun for modernism with a sense of humour.
- Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism Contrasts · Both made idea-led covers in the same decades, but American modernists composed asymmetric cut-paper shapes and hand-drawn marks in bright flat colours, while Rojo, who found the US and French advertising manuals he could get in Mexico not to his liking, framed one treated photograph or found vignette on white with a fine rule and Bodoni, Baskerville or Futura, ordering the text with printer's ornaments. Choose Rojo when the type should serve the reading rather than play the joke.
- Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie Poster Pairs well · Saul Bass's film posters are a favourite model of the alternative movie poster (Film Comment found the Bass homages 'far too plentiful' in 2014); borrow his one cut-paper symbol that holds the whole story.
- UPA & Cartoon Modern Pairs well · Its print parent: Alvin Lustig drew UPA's logo. Both use flat colour, simple shapes and visual wit. Add UPA's caricatured characters and stripped sets to a Rand- or Lustig-style layout when an idea needs a cast of people rather than a single symbol.
- Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar) Contrasts · Rand and Lustig build flat geometric pictograms; Brodovitch builds sequences of grainy photographs.
- Saul and Elaine Bass Conceptual Film Graphics Pairs well · Its print parent, which already counts Bass among its makers: take Rand's or Lustig's cut-paper wit on the page, and the Bass branch when the single idea has to move, assemble in time and set a mood before a story begins.
- Bengali Modernist Book Cover (Prachchhad) Pairs well · Combine mid-century flat cut-paper shapes and asymmetry with hand-drawn Bengali lettering for a literary jacket that works in two scripts.
With Victorian Letterpress
- Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Pairs well · Sign writers and type founders traded letterforms; add brushed shading and drop shadows to wood-type headlines for a street-made feel.
- Push Pin Style Pairs well · Push Pin revived Victorian display faces with irony; mix one wood-type headline with modern illustration for the same knowing nostalgia.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · One face, flush left and white space against a centred clamour of faces: use the contrast to test whether hierarchy needs variety at all.
- Arts & Crafts Movement Contrasts · Morris reacted against exactly this commercial clutter; set the two side by side to show craft restraint versus jobbing exuberance.
- HfG Ulm Systematic Design Contrasts · A Victorian mixed-face handbill is the clutter Ulm's one-family rule was meant to cure; use it as a before-and-after foil.
- Victorian Colour Toy Books (Evans, Crane, Caldecott and Greenaway) Contrasts · Its black-letter-dense, type-and-ornament jobbing page is the opposite of a picture-led page; combine them by hanging a wood-type title over a flat colour picture.
- Dada Pairs well · Raid Victorian wood type and stock ornaments as the Dadaists did, but scatter them instead of centring them.
- American Four-Colour Comic Book (Golden to Bronze Age) Pairs well · Both are cheap letterpress print that shouts to passers-by; borrow the playbill's stacked display capitals, banners and rules for a comic cover's blurbs and price box, while keeping the comic's hand-drawn letters and keyline art.