Style combination · Pairs well

Cuban Tobacco Lithography × Hand-Painted Signage

The Cuban historian J. R. Bermúdez (quoted by Calzadilla) credits the label lettering with influencing type founders and sign painters; take the shaded, outlined brand capitals off the label and onto a shop window or bar fascia to carry a tobacco-house identity into the street.

From the research on Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas)

Mix them and make something Cuban Tobacco Lithography Hand-Painted Signage

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Cuban Tobacco Lithography, their arrangement from Cuban Tobacco Lithography, the finish from Hand-Painted Signage. 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.

Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

Type from Hand-Painted Signage: Hand-lettering
Script
Colour from Cuban Tobacco Lithography: Jewel & metallic
Full polychrome
Form from Cuban Tobacco Lithography: Naturalistic depiction
Abundant decoration
Composition from Cuban Tobacco Lithography: Central symmetry
Framed panels
Surface from Hand-Painted Signage: Hard offset shadow
Painterly brushwork

The type

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

Display · Hand-Painted Signage

Wow

Yellowtail, standing in for Brush script

Text · Cuban Tobacco Lithography

The chromolithographed dress of Havana tobacco. Cigar labels were lithographed in one ink from the late 1840s; from about 1860 La Honradez printed its cigarette wrappers (marquillas) in colour in-house: satirical scenes of Cuban life in collectible series, framed by an allegorical border and the firm's emblem. Cigar boxes got a matched set of labels (habilitación): a vista inside the lid, a bofetón over the cigars, edge strips, seals and cigar bands, with medals, royal arms, allegorical women and Havana views in many inks from the 1880s, and gold leaf and stamped relief from about 1890.

Libre Caslon Text; Cuban Tobacco Lithography used Shaded, outlined and inline display capitals drawn by the lithographers and marquistas on the stone; J. R. Bermúdez (La imagen constante, 2000, quoted by Calzadilla) credits their wide repertoire of letters and ornaments with influencing type founders and sign painters and Brand and factory names on banners, ribbons and cartouches

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Cuban Tobacco Lithography, with a counter-accent from Hand-Painted Signage. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering

#f2e8cc ground · 36%
#4a2e1f ink · 14%
#b51f2e accent · 18%
#c99a2e accent · 14%
#9ccbdc accent · 10%
#2e5a3c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2e8cc;
  --ink: #4a2e1f;
  --accent-1: #b51f2e;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #9ccbdc;
  --accent-4: #2e5a3c;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", cursive;
  --font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", serif;
}

Use it with care

Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas): Many marquillas trade in racist caricature: series such as 'Vida y muerte de la mulata' sexualise mixed-race women and mock Black Cubans in bozal speech, and some labels show enslaved workers on tobacco estates or bare-breasted 'aboriginal' women as exotic decoration; do not reproduce these figures as period charm. Names and dressings such as H. Upmann, Partagás, Punch and Romeo y Julieta are live Habanos trademarks, so draw new marks rather than copying them, and treat images of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Cuba's patron saint, as devotional, not decorative.