Style combination · Contrasts

Chinese Calligraphy × International Typographic Style

Set a single large brushed character against a flush-left grotesque grid to stage the gesture of the hand against impersonal order.

From the research on Chinese Calligraphy & Seal Carving (Shufa & Zhuanke)

Mix them and make something Chinese Calligraphy International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Chinese Calligraphy, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Chinese Calligraphy. 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.

Chinese Calligraphy & Seal Carving (Shufa & Zhuanke) International Typographic Style

Type from Chinese Calligraphy: Brush & pen calligraphy
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Chinese Calligraphy: Emblems & badges
Biomorphic curves
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry
Surface from Chinese Calligraphy: Painterly brushwork
Carved line

The type

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

Display · Chinese Calligraphy

Notice

Shippori Mincho, standing in for Regular script (kaishu) after Ouyang Xun and Yan Zhenqing (the 'Yan style', Yanti)

Text · International Typographic Style

A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Chinese Calligraphy. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Chinese Calligraphy & Seal Carving (Shufa & Zhuanke) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#1f4e9c accent · 14%
#d8c7a0 accent · 10%
#7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-3: #d8c7a0;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Chinese Calligraphy & Seal Carving (Shufa & Zhuanke): Chinese calligraphy and seal engraving are living arts, inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List in 2009 and passed on from master to apprentice, so commission or credit calligraphers and seal carvers rather than tracing their hands, and never present generated writing as the work of a named master. Japanese shodō and Korean seoye grew from this root but are distinct living traditions with their own masters; do not label them Chinese or use this entry as a stand-in for them. Have every character written or checked by a fluent reader: image models produce pseudo-characters, and mirrored, reversed or wrongly ordered characters read as nonsense (the upside-down 福 posted at the New Year is a deliberate exception). A seal is a personal signature and is still used on official documents, so never make a seal bearing a real person's or institution's name without their consent, never copy a historical collector's or emperor's seal onto new work, and remember the seal face is cut in reverse so that the impression reads correctly. Never write a living person's name in red ink, a traditional taboo that marks the condemned and the dead. Buddhist sutras and other devotional texts written as calligraphy should not be cropped into texture or put on floors and throwaway items.