Celtic Revival Illumination × Narbut School

Another national revival that rebuilds a native ornament and hand-lettering tradition as an identity system.

From the research on Narbut School (Ukrainian Baroque Revival Graphics)

Mix them and make something Celtic Revival Illumination Narbut School

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 Narbut School (Ukrainian Baroque Revival Graphics)

Type from Narbut School: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display
Colour from Narbut School: Limited spot colours
Monochrome
Form from Celtic Revival Illumination: Geometric tessellation
Abundant decoration
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 · Narbut School

Again

Federant; Narbut School used Narbut's hand-drawn Ukrainian Baroque lettering and initials and Hand-drawn Cossack-baroque title lettering on charters and banknotes

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 Narbut School, with a counter-accent from Celtic Revival Illumination. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Narbut School (Ukrainian Baroque Revival Graphics)

#f1ead8 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#c9a227 accent · 18%
#7a1f1a accent · 14%
#2f4a73 accent · 10%
#1f5a3d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1ead8;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #c9a227;
  --accent-2: #7a1f1a;
  --accent-3: #2f4a73;
  --accent-4: #1f5a3d;
  --font-display: "Federant", 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.