Brodovitch Editorial Design × Surrealist Graphics

Take its isolated body parts, torn edges and dreamlike juxtaposition, but apply them to the photographic spread.

From the research on Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar)

Mix them and make something Brodovitch Editorial Design Surrealist Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Surrealist Graphics, their arrangement from Brodovitch Editorial Design, the finish from Brodovitch Editorial Design. 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.

Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar) Surrealist Graphics

Type from Brodovitch Editorial Design: Didone
Colour from Surrealist Graphics: Monochrome
Gradients
Form from Surrealist Graphics: Naturalistic depiction
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Brodovitch Editorial Design: Dynamic asymmetry
Full bleed
Surface from Brodovitch Editorial Design: Grain & noise

The type

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

Display · Brodovitch Editorial Design

Rose

Playfair Display, standing in for Didot (Bazaar masthead and display)

Text · Surrealist Graphics

Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bodoni Moda; Surrealist Graphics used Artists' hand-lettered mastheads and Didone and Victorian display faces lifted from 19th-century catalogues

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Surrealist Graphics, with a counter-accent from Brodovitch Editorial Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar) Surrealist Graphics

#1d1b2e ground · 36%
#efe8d8 ink · 14%
#a24a2a accent · 18%
#d3202f accent · 14%
#d8b77a accent · 10%
#e8b4b8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #1d1b2e;
  --ink: #efe8d8;
  --accent-1: #a24a2a;
  --accent-2: #d3202f;
  --accent-3: #d8b77a;
  --accent-4: #e8b4b8;
  --font-display: "Playfair Display", serif;
  --font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}

The two styles

A grainy black-and-white close-up of a woman fills the left side, with a translucent red scarf sweeping across the top against a cream background. Tall serif lettering reads “FAR LIGHT” above three small photographs of a woman running along a wet terrace.

1934–1958 · North America Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar) A magazine-spread idiom in which the photograph is treated as a cinematic sequence: bled, unexpectedly cropped, grainy and blurred images set against generous white space, a Didone masthead and an expressive second colour that varied by issue. Improvised rather than gridded, it made the fashion magazine an art-directed object and shaped a generation of photographers.

A distressed, surreal collage combines a large woman's face with a curling seashell, stone staircases, ruined arches, and cliffside buildings above a blue sea. An orange fish floats in the foreground, a tiny person stands on the stairs, and a golden disc hangs among clouds beside the title “The Drift.”

1924–1960 · Western Europe, North America Surrealist Graphics Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

Brodovitch Editorial Design × Surrealist Graphics

What each style brings

The type

The colours

As CSS

The two styles

More combinations

With Brodovitch Editorial Design

With Surrealist Graphics