Stylogeny combining Corporate Identity Modernism × Emblem Book

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Style combination · Pairs well

Corporate Identity Modernism × Emblem Book

The emblem's motto-plus-sign unit already works like a mark with a tagline; reduce its allegorical picture to one flat, repeatable sign with corporate modernism's discipline and keep the motto as the line beneath it.

From the research on Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram)

Mix them and make something Corporate Identity Modernism Emblem Book

NOTICECorporate Identity × Emblem Book1955 · 1531
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Corporate Identity Modernism, their arrangement from Corporate Identity Modernism, the finish from Emblem Book. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Corporate Identity Modernism Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram)

Type from Emblem Book
Colour from Corporate Identity Modernism
Form from Corporate Identity Modernism

Emblem Book avoids non-representational: this is where the two pull against each other.

Composition from Corporate Identity Modernism
Surface from Emblem Book

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The type

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

Display · Emblem Book

Notice

Cinzel, standing in for Letterspaced roman capitals for the mottoes of Steyner's 1531 Augsburg edition, as 'REVERENTIAM IN MATRIMONIO REQVIRI', broken over two centred lines above the woodcut, with the couplets in italic below, alternate lines indented

Text · Corporate Identity Modernism

Modernist reduction applied to corporate communication. A company's whole public face (trademark, logotype, stationery, packaging, vehicles and signage) was unified by an abstract symbol, a single typeface and one colour, all policed by a graphic standards manual. Pioneered by Paul Rand, Chermayeff & Geismar, Unimark and Lippincott & Margulies, it made the reductive mark and the grid the visual language of multinational business and government.

Inter; Corporate Identity Modernism used Helvetica and Univers

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Corporate Identity Modernism, with a counter-accent from Emblem Book. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Corporate Identity Modernism Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram)

  • #ffffff ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #d7261e accent · 18%
  • #8a6a45 accent · 14%
  • #0a4fa0 accent · 10%
  • #c9b48f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #d7261e;
  --accent-2: #8a6a45;
  --accent-3: #0a4fa0;
  --accent-4: #c9b48f;
  --font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

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The two styles

A blue circle sits above two mirrored red tapered shapes separated by a widening white gap. Large, bold black lettering reading “Apex” appears underneath on a white background. 1955–1990 · North America, Western Europe, Global / networked Corporate Identity Modernism Modernist reduction applied to corporate communication. A company's whole public face (trademark, logotype, stationery, packaging, vehicles and signage) was unified by an abstract symbol, a single typeface and one colour, all policed by a graphic standards manual. Pioneered by Paul Rand, Chermayeff & Geismar, Unimark and Lippincott & Margulies, it made the reductive mark and the grid the visual language of multinational business and government. An antique-style sepia illustration titled “QUIET ROOTS” shows a large tree with exposed roots surrounding a buried rock, flanked by two resting stags, with a river, bridge and town behind it. An elaborate architectural frame surrounds the scene, decorated with foliage, birds, a woman's face, urns and ribbon bows. 1531–1724 · Southern Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram) A European book genre in which, from Chrestien Wechel's Paris edition of 1534 on, every page or opening repeats one fixed unit: a short motto, an allegorical picture and an explanatory verse, which only together yield a moral, amorous or religious meaning. It began with Andrea Alciato's Emblematum liber (Augsburg, 1531), whose emblems still ran on continuously, and moved from small framed woodcuts set in humanist roman and italic to engravings, from Bocchi's Bologna book of 1555 to the full-page copperplates of 17th-century Dutch, Flemish and Jesuit books.

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More combinations

With Corporate Identity Modernism

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With Emblem Book

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