Style combination · Contrasts

German Book Art Movement × Victorian Letterpress

The reform answered the cheap, mass-produced book of the late nineteenth century; one artist-drawn face against a jobbing printer's mix of display types shows what it rejected.

From the research on German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung)

Mix them and make something German Book Art Movement Victorian Letterpress

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Victorian Letterpress, their arrangement from German Book Art Movement, the finish from German Book Art Movement. 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.

German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung) Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

Type from German Book Art Movement: Humanist & Garalde serif
Blackletter
Colour from Victorian Letterpress: Limited spot colours
Monochrome
Form from Victorian Letterpress: Borders & frames
Abundant decoration

German Book Art Movement avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from German Book Art Movement: Classical text block
Central symmetry
Surface from German Book Art Movement: 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 · German Book Art Movement

Quiet

UnifrakturMaguntia; German Book Art Movement used Behrens-Schrift (Peter Behrens, Gebr. Klingspor, 1902; semibold 1901), followed by Behrens-Antiqua and Behrens-Kursiv and Ehmcke-Antiqua and Ehmcke-Kursiv (Flinsch, 1908–1910; the Antiqua is dated 1908 or 1909/10) and Ehmcke-Fraktur

Text · Victorian Letterpress

The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.

Zilla Slab; Victorian Letterpress used Fat face romans and Egyptian / Antique slab serifs

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Victorian Letterpress, with a counter-accent from German Book Art Movement. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung) Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

#efe4c9 ground · 36%
#1b1a17 ink · 14%
#b3322b accent · 18%
#d9b45a accent · 14%
#c9b68c accent · 10%
#24477d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe4c9;
  --ink: #1b1a17;
  --accent-1: #b3322b;
  --accent-2: #d9b45a;
  --accent-3: #c9b68c;
  --accent-4: #24477d;
  --font-display: "UnifrakturMaguntia", serif;
  --font-text: "Zilla Slab", serif;
}

Use it with care

German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung): Fraktur carries political weight in German-speaking countries: the Nazi regime pushed it as the German script in its first years before banning it in January 1941 (see the blackletter-fraktur caution). Several of the movement's presses and artists were active up to the 1933 seizure of power, after which Harry Graf Kessler of the Cranach-Presse never returned to Germany. Check how a Fraktur page or a 'German book art' label will read, especially for anything national or political.

The two styles

1895–1933 · Central Europe German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung) The German reform of the book, from the magazine Pan (1895) to the private presses that ended around 1933. After Morris's Kelmscott Press, artists, printers and publishers treated a book as one work in which text, type, illustration, paper, presswork and binding agree. A Jugendstil start of floral borders and Beardsley-like drawing gave way, from about 1900, to a typographic phase: artist-drawn romans and Frakturen, hand-press printing on handmade paper, and drawn titles and woodcut initials as the only ornament. After 1918 illustration returned, as at the Cranach-Presse.

An ornate vintage-style poster reads “RIVER FAIR” in huge red and navy letters on distressed cream paper. A circular illustration of a paddle-wheel steamboat sits between the words, surrounded by floral scrollwork, patterned borders, and a rising sun.

1810–1900 · Western Europe, North America Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.