Style combination · Pairs well

Celtic Revival Illumination × Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

Both turned medieval interlace and beast heads into the ornament of a national book; set Norse dragon-head vignettes beside Insular knotwork for a North Sea saga cycle.

From the research on Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

Mix them and make something Celtic Revival Illumination Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Celtic Revival Illumination, their arrangement from Celtic Revival Illumination, the finish from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics. 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 Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

Type from Celtic Revival Illumination: Hand-lettering
Brush & pen calligraphy
Colour from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics: Flat fields
Earth & mineral
Form from Celtic Revival Illumination: Geometric tessellation
Abundant decoration
Composition from Celtic Revival Illumination: Framed panels
Central symmetry
Surface from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics: Carved line
Flat

The type

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

Display · Celtic Revival Illumination

Memory

Uncial Antiqua; 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

Text · Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

The flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament. Gerhard Munthe set the woodcut-like pen style and blackletter type of the 1899 saga edition, had Draumkvæde (1904) hand-lettered after Norse saga manuscripts, and designed tapestries of stiff myth figures in flat folk colour; Akseli Gallen-Kallela gave the Kalevala bold outlines and flat colour in woodcuts, frescoes, ryijy rugs and book vignettes; Dragestil timber buildings carried dragon heads.

Space Mono; Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics used The hand-lettered text of Draumkvæde (1904) and The blackletter text type Munthe chose for Snorre Sturlason

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics, with a counter-accent from Celtic Revival Illumination. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

#e8dcc2 ground · 36%
#2a1f17 ink · 14%
#c9932e accent · 18%
#a3342b accent · 14%
#2e4a7d accent · 10%
#56703f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #e8dcc2;
  --ink: #2a1f17;
  --accent-1: #c9932e;
  --accent-2: #a3342b;
  --accent-3: #2e4a7d;
  --accent-4: #56703f;
  --font-display: "Uncial Antiqua", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Space Mono", monospace;
}

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.

Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism): In Norway the fascist Nasjonal Samling (1933–45) took a golden sun cross on red, which it claimed as St Olav's shield, for its emblem, leaned heavily on Viking art and symbolism and built on romantic nationalism, so keep saga warriors, dragon ships and the Olav cross away from ethnic-nationalist framing. Old signs near this material, the othala rune, the sun cross (also called Odin's cross) and Odin's valknut, are used by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, though non-racist pagans also use the othala rune and the valknut: check how such a sign reads in context before borrowing it. Gallen-Kallela's 1918 insignia for the White Army's Order of the Cross of Liberty set a golden swastika into the cross: do not borrow it. Karelianism cast Karelia as a refuge of authentic Finnishness, and some of its ideas later fed the irredentist Greater Finland project, so do not present Karelian or Orthodox folk culture as merely Finland's past: Karelians are a living people with their own language and crafts. In these decades Norway's Norwegianisation policy pressed the Sámi to assimilate: do not fold Sámi duodji motifs into this Norse ornament.

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. 1880–1922 · Northern Europe Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism) The flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament. Gerhard Munthe set the woodcut-like pen style and blackletter type of the 1899 saga edition, had Draumkvæde (1904) hand-lettered after Norse saga manuscripts, and designed tapestries of stiff myth figures in flat folk colour; Akseli Gallen-Kallela gave the Kalevala bold outlines and flat colour in woodcuts, frescoes, ryijy rugs and book vignettes; Dragestil timber buildings carried dragon heads.