Style combination · Contrasts
Art Nouveau × Vienna Secession
Set French whiplash against the Viennese square to show the turn from organic to geometric ornament within one decorative idiom.
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.
Art Nouveau Vienna Secession
- Type from Vienna Secession
- Colour from Art Nouveau
- Form from Art Nouveau
-
Vienna Secession avoids whiplash line: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Composition from Vienna Secession
- Surface from Art Nouveau
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Vienna Secession
Velvet
Federant; Vienna Secession used Alfred Roller's elongated, interlocking block capitals and Koloman Moser's geometric display lettering
Text · Art Nouveau
An international 'new art' that sought a modern style free of historical revival, drawing its forms from plant growth and the female figure. Graphic work flows with whiplash curves and stylised flowers, frames idealised women in arches, halos and mosaic borders, and draws custom lettering that bends to fill the space, fusing image, ornament and type into one decorative surface.
Bodoni Moda; Art Nouveau used Arnold Böcklin and Eckmann
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Art Nouveau, with a counter-accent from Vienna Secession. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Art Nouveau Vienna Secession
-
#efe2c4ground · 36% -
#4b3b2aink · 14% -
#c9a24baccent · 18% -
#3f7a75accent · 14% -
#a3282aaccent · 10% -
#d9a6a0accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe2c4;
--ink: #4b3b2a;
--accent-1: #c9a24b;
--accent-2: #3f7a75;
--accent-3: #a3282a;
--accent-4: #d9a6a0;
--font-display: "Federant", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Art Nouveau
- Fileteado Porteño Pairs well · Fileteado's acanthus scrolls share the whiplash; combine them for ornate, hand-made lettering frames.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Ornamental curves against an orthogonal grid make a strong deliberate tension; let one botanical flourish break a cold grid.
- Psychedelic Poster Pairs well · San Francisco poster artists lifted Mucha's figures and whiplash wholesale; push the curves into saturated, vibrating colour for a 1960s-flavoured revival.
- Russian Constructivism Contrasts · Organic sensuality versus machine-age diagonals: use the opposition to stage nature against industry.
- Skønvirke (Danish Art Nouveau, Bindesbøll) Contrasts · Shares the hand-lettering and abundance but swaps the whiplash line and the female figure for blunt abstract masses; set side by side they show the heavy Danish variant.
- Expressionist Woodcut Graphics Contrasts · The parent's smooth whiplash and floral harmony is exactly what the gouge splinters; use one against the other to stage order breaking down.
- Beggarstaffs Poster (Nicholson & Pryde) Contrasts · Its curving floral line is the opposite of cut masses; set side by side to show how much a poster can drop.
- Simplicissimus Satirical Style (Munich) Contrasts · The parent: Heine took over the Jugendstil idiom, but where Art Nouveau spends the whiplash line on flowers and idealised women, Simplicissimus spends it on a grotesque type and a caption. Choose it when the curve should mock rather than adorn.
With Vienna Secession
- Art Deco Pairs well · Carry the Secession's squares, chequers and gold into Deco's stepped geometry for a luxurious but disciplined look.
- Japanese Postwar Modernism Pairs well · Both reduce motifs to emblematic flat shapes in a calm field; combine them for elegant cultural posters.
- Glasgow Style Pairs well · Vienna learned from Glasgow in 1900; combine Mackintosh's attenuated verticals with Secession squares and gold for refined cultural branding.
- Josef Frank and Svenskt Tenn Botanical Prints Contrasts · Frank came out of Vienna, but his loose, asymmetric plant repeats are the opposite of the Secession's geometric, symmetrical ornament; compare a Wiener Werkstätte grid pattern with his free-growing trees.
- Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau) Pairs well · Both pulled Art Nouveau toward geometry, symmetry and strict repetition in the same years; add Vienna's black, white and gold and its white margins to the Dutch earth-colour repeat for a more open page.
- Mir iskusstva Book Art Contrasts · Both enclose pictures in symmetrical frames, but Vienna squared the frame into grids and bars while the Russian book filled a wide border with folk and rococo motifs; pick geometric order or narrative ornament.
- Bezalel School Contrasts · Both put pictures inside symmetrical ornamental frames, but Vienna squared the frame into grids and bars while Bezalel filled it with Middle Eastern filigree, carpet and metalwork motifs.
- Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography Contrasts · Both square their capitals into dense blocks inside symmetrical frames, but Vienna draws them by hand while Wendingen builds them from type metal; use the comparison to decide whether a heading should look drawn or assembled.