Style combination · Pairs well

Gothic Blackletter × European Heraldry

Medieval armorials name their shields in Gothic hands and German heraldic artists such as Otto Hupp also drew Fraktur; pair a flat Gothic shield with a blackletter name or motto for a certificate, diploma or civic document, checking how the broken script will read politically.

From the research on European Heraldry

Mix them and make something Gothic Blackletter European Heraldry

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from European Heraldry, their arrangement from Gothic Blackletter, the finish from Gothic Blackletter. 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.

Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition European Heraldry

Type from Gothic Blackletter: Blackletter
Tight setting
Colour from European Heraldry: Flat fields
Primary triad
Form from European Heraldry: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges
Composition from Gothic Blackletter: Classical text block
Column grid
Surface from Gothic Blackletter: Paper & letterpress bite
Carved line

The type

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

Display · Gothic Blackletter

Public

UnifrakturMaguntia, standing in for Gutenberg's 42-line Bible textura (Mainz, c. 1454–55)

Text · European Heraldry

The hereditary identifying devices of medieval Europe's knights and seals, codified into a rule-bound grammar still used by states, cities, churches, universities and families. A coat of arms is defined by its written blazon, not by a drawing: a few flat tinctures (two metals, five colours and the furs) that keep metal off metal and colour off colour, a shield divided by bold ordinaries, and stylised charges in fixed poses, redrawn by every age in its own idiom and combined by impalement and quartering.

Libre Caslon Text; European Heraldry used Gothic book and cursive hands naming the bearer above or beside each shield in medieval rolls of arms and armorials, as 'die coninc van denmarke' beside the Danish flag in the Gelre Armorial and Mottoes lettered on a scroll beneath the shield

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from European Heraldry, with a counter-accent from Gothic Blackletter. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition European Heraldry

#f4f1e8 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#e8b923 accent · 18%
#b0302a accent · 14%
#b8913a accent · 10%
#1c3f94 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1e8;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #e8b923;
  --accent-2: #b0302a;
  --accent-3: #b8913a;
  --accent-4: #1c3f94;
  --font-display: "UnifrakturMaguntia", serif;
  --font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", serif;
}

Use it with care

Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition: Blackletter carries political weight in German-speaking countries: the Nazi regime pushed Fraktur as the German script in its first years before banning it in January 1941 as supposed 'Schwabacher Jewish letters', and neo-Nazis still use broken scripts. In the United States, too, certain blackletter faces are associated with hate groups, on tattoos and clothing. Check how a blackletter wordmark will read, especially for anything German, national or political. Cholo placas are territorial inscriptions of Los Angeles Latino street writing with their own codes: do not copy a real neighbourhood's placa or roll call, and commission or credit Chicano letterers (such as Chaz Bojórquez) rather than borrowing their menace as decoration.

European Heraldry: A coat of arms belongs to a particular bearer, lineage or (in Polish heraldry) clan, not to everyone with a surname: in Scotland it can belong to only one person at a time and the Court of the Lord Lyon can fine those who usurp arms and have the offending items removed or destroyed, state arms are protected against unauthorised registration and use as trademarks under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention, and many European cities and universities protect their arms as trademarks. Design new arms by the rules of the tradition rather than copying a real family's, city's or state's arms for decoration or branding, and do not present invented arms as a family's historic coat of arms. Crusader and Templar shields and knights with crosses on their chests or shields have also become far-right insignia (Charlottesville 2017, the US Capitol 2021), and neo-Nazis use an eagle loosely based on German coats of arms, though not every eagle derives from it; check how a cross, an eagle or a crusading knight will read before using it, and avoid pairing them with militant or ethnic-nationalist themes.

The two styles

Large black Gothic lettering reading “Frost Wacht” fills an aged cream poster, surrounded by curling black foliage, red berries, and two inward-facing black birds. Red, blue, and ochre starbursts and a zigzag border frame the symmetrical design.

c. 1180–present · Central Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, North America, Global / networked Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition The broken scripts of the Latin West. Textualis, a book hand from the late 12th century (Rotunda its rounder Italian form), went into type with Gutenberg's 42-line Bible (Mainz, c. 1454–55); Schwabacher followed from 1472, and Fraktur was cut for Maximilian I's Prayer Book (1513). Curves break into angles; tight justified pages read as a dark, even weave with red rubrics. Fraktur set German text until the Nazi ban of 1941. Elsewhere it had long become a display letter, and today signals age, gravity or menace on mastheads, beer labels, metal logos and cholo lettering.

An ornate coat of arms shows two golden stags supporting a shield with a green oak tree, blue waves, and three gold stars. A knight’s helmet and large star crown the shield, surrounded by green and gold foliage, a red patterned border, and a cream scroll reading “BRIGHTER LANDS.”

c. 1140–present · Western Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe European Heraldry The hereditary identifying devices of medieval Europe's knights and seals, codified into a rule-bound grammar still used by states, cities, churches, universities and families. A coat of arms is defined by its written blazon, not by a drawing: a few flat tinctures (two metals, five colours and the furs) that keep metal off metal and colour off colour, a shield divided by bold ordinaries, and stylised charges in fixed poses, redrawn by every age in its own idiom and combined by impalement and quartering.

More combinations

With Gothic Blackletter

All 15 combinations with Gothic Blackletter

With European Heraldry

All 10 combinations with European Heraldry

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