Style combination · Contrasts

Armenian Manuscript Illumination × International Typographic Style

Its opposite: symmetrical, gilded, ornament-filled arcades against an asymmetric grid, neutral sans-serif and open white space; a single bird letter can warm a strict grid.

From the research on Armenian Manuscript Illumination

Mix them and make something Armenian Manuscript Illumination International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Armenian Manuscript Illumination, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Armenian Manuscript Illumination. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Armenian Manuscript Illumination International Typographic Style

Type from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Brush & pen calligraphy
Ornamented display

International Typographic Style avoids ornamented display: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Abundant decoration
Borders & frames

International Typographic Style avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry

Armenian Manuscript Illumination avoids dynamic asymmetry: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Armenian Manuscript Illumination: Flat

The type

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

Display · Armenian Manuscript Illumination

Atlas

Uncial Antiqua, standing in for Erkatagir ('iron letters'), the uncial held to be Mesrop Mashtots's original form of the alphabet of 405, used for manuscript text from the 5th to the 13th century and still preferred for inscriptions

Text · International Typographic Style

A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Armenian Manuscript Illumination. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Armenian Manuscript Illumination International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#1f4e9c accent · 14%
#c8a03a accent · 10%
#7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-3: #c8a03a;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Uncial Antiqua", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Armenian Manuscript Illumination: These are Gospel books, lectionaries and Bibles of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and their crosses, evangelist symbols, portraits of Christ and the saints and holy names keep their sacred meaning; do not use them as texture, logos or decoration on trivial products. Armenian letter art, including ornamental letters made of birds, animals and people, is living heritage (UNESCO Representative List, 2019) practised by calligraphers, carpet weavers, embroiderers and jewellers, so commission or collaborate with Armenian artists rather than lifting motifs, and have any Armenian text written or checked by a fluent reader instead of assembling letters as pseudo-script. Manuscripts were seized, scattered or lost in the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the Zeyt'un Gospels among them (its canon tables were removed and sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1994; a 2015 agreement acknowledged the Armenian Church as their owner while the leaves stayed at the Getty), and several of the scriptoria (Vaspurakan, Cilicia) now lie outside Armenia: credit the work as Armenian, naming its Byzantine models, and the Syriac ones of the earliest books, where they matter, and do not fold it into a generic 'Byzantine' or 'Oriental' style.