Style combination · Contrasts

Celtic Revival Illumination × Glasgow Style

Scotland in the same years, but Glasgow stretched space, emptied it and set a few rosebuds on long verticals, while the Celtic Revival fills its compartments densely with knotwork; choose air or density.

From the research on Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering

Mix them and make something Celtic Revival Illumination Glasgow Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Celtic Revival Illumination, their arrangement from Celtic Revival Illumination, the finish from Celtic Revival 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.

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Glasgow Style

Type from Glasgow Style: Hand-lettering
Condensed display
Colour from Glasgow Style: Limited spot colours
Pastel
Form from Celtic Revival Illumination: Geometric tessellation
Abundant decoration

Glasgow Style avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from Celtic Revival Illumination: Framed panels
Central symmetry
Surface from Celtic Revival Illumination: Flat

The type

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

Display · Glasgow Style

Reverie

Poiret One; Glasgow Style used Charles Rennie Mackintosh's attenuated hand lettering and ITC Rennie Mackintosh

Text · Celtic Revival Illumination

Ornament and lettering of the Celtic Revival in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, modelled on Insular gospel books such as Kells and on carved stone crosses. Text sits in closed, symmetrical frames of knotwork, key pattern, spirals and interlaced beasts, its letters drawn in insular forms, knotted into the ornament or set in Gaelic type, in deep flat colours on vellum or paper. Its makers carried it from illuminated books and addresses to a nationalist memorial book, Gaelic League mastheads, magazines, the Irish Free State's first stamps and Liberty silver.

EB Garamond; Celtic Revival Illumination used Hand-drawn lettering after the majuscule and half-uncial of the Insular manuscripts, drawn into the ornament and Archibald Knox's interlaced Celtic lettering, drawn so densely into the ornament that it must be studied to be read

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Glasgow Style, with a counter-accent from Celtic Revival Illumination. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Glasgow Style

#f4f1ea ground · 36%
#1d1b1a ink · 14%
#c9768e accent · 18%
#b8902e accent · 14%
#8e7aa8 accent · 10%
#a12a2a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #1d1b1a;
  --accent-1: #c9768e;
  --accent-2: #b8902e;
  --accent-3: #8e7aa8;
  --accent-4: #a12a2a;
  --font-display: "Poiret One", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", serif;
}

Use it with care

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering: Its models are Christian gospel books and crosses, and many of its emblems are national and partisan: Leabhar na hAiséirghe is a memorial to the republican dead of 1916–23, including the Civil War, and the Celtic Cross stamp was adapted from a Sinn Féin label, so do not use these as neutral 'Irish' decoration where nationalist imagery is contested, as in Northern Ireland. The 1922 Map of Ireland stamp left out the border, and some in Northern Ireland and Britain read it as a claim to the northern counties, so an undivided map of the island is itself a political statement. A square cross interlocked with or surrounded by a circle is a widespread white-supremacist symbol, while the traditional Celtic cross has a long vertical shaft, so draw the cross accordingly and check knotwork marks in context. 'Celtic' and 'Irish' are not exclusive labels for Kells-type ornament: Insular art was made across Britain and Ireland, the Lindisfarne Gospels in Northumbria, and Kells itself possibly begun on Iona. George Bain died in 1968, so his drawings remain in copyright in the UK until the end of 2038: construct new knots by his methods rather than tracing his plates, and have any Irish or Scottish Gaelic text checked by a fluent reader.

The two styles

An ornate illuminated-manuscript-style poster reads “BRIGHT PATHS,” surrounded by gold Celtic knotwork, spirals, and patterned borders in blue, green, and rust red. Mirrored birds flank a sun above the lettering, while two deer frame a winding river through green hills below.

1861–1951 · Western Europe Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Ornament and lettering of the Celtic Revival in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, modelled on Insular gospel books such as Kells and on carved stone crosses. Text sits in closed, symmetrical frames of knotwork, key pattern, spirals and interlaced beasts, its letters drawn in insular forms, knotted into the ornament or set in Gaelic type, in deep flat colours on vellum or paper. Its makers carried it from illuminated books and addresses to a nationalist memorial book, Gaelic League mastheads, magazines, the Irish Free State's first stamps and Liberty silver. 1890–1914 · Western Europe Glasgow Style Glasgow's distinctive answer to Art Nouveau, formed around Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret and Frances Macdonald and Herbert MacNair at the Glasgow School of Art. It sets attenuated, ghostly figures and tight rosebuds against long vertical lines and small square lattices in tall, symmetrical compositions, balancing Celtic and Japanese restraint against continental exuberance.