Style combination · Contrasts
Cuban Tobacco Lithography × Victorian Letterpress
The same century's display capitals, borders and medals, but jobbing print leads with type in one or two flat inks while the Havana label leads with a stone-printed picture in many inks, gold and relief; set them side by side to choose between a loud notice and a luxury seal.
Mix them and make something Cuban Tobacco Lithography Victorian Letterpress
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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.
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type
- Type from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Colour from Victorian Letterpress
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Cuban Tobacco Lithography avoids monochrome: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Form from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Composition from Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Surface from Victorian Letterpress
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The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Cuban Tobacco Lithography
Hello
Elsie; 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
Text · Victorian Letterpress
The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.
Zilla Slab; Victorian Letterpress used Fat face romans and Egyptian / Antique slab serifs
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The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Victorian Letterpress, with a counter-accent from Cuban Tobacco Lithography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas) Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type
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#efe4c9ground · 36% -
#1b1a17ink · 14% -
#b3322baccent · 18% -
#d9b45aaccent · 14% -
#24477daccent · 10% -
#9ccbdcaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe4c9;
--ink: #1b1a17;
--accent-1: #b3322b;
--accent-2: #d9b45a;
--accent-3: #24477d;
--accent-4: #9ccbdc;
--font-display: "Elsie", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Zilla Slab", 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.
04
The two styles
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More combinations
With Cuban Tobacco Lithography
- Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai Pairs well · Shanghai's calendar posters were also given away by tobacco firms; pair their softly modelled women and ornamental borders with the Havana label's medals and arms for a cross-continental tobacco or spirits heritage line.
- Belle Époque Lithographic Poster Contrasts · Both are colour lithography of the same decades, but the Paris poster puts one figure on a wall at a distance, while the cigar label packs medals, arms and views into a matched set read in the hand; borrow the poster's single figure when a label grows too crowded.
- Hipster Artisanal Revival Contrasts · The craft-boom badge borrows the medal, the banner and the 'Est.' date in one ink on kraft; go back to the Havana label's full colour, bronze gold and embossing when a heritage brand needs real opulence rather than a quotation of it.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Contrasts · A century later in the same city, ICAIC and OSPAAAL posters used flat silhouettes, few inks and one conceptual image; compare them to see what the revolution's graphics stripped away from Havana's commercial ornament.
- Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Pairs well · 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.
- Egyptian Cigarette Packaging (Cairo Tobacco Houses) Pairs well · Borrow the Havana labels' embossed medals and ribbon banners for a richer lid, but keep the Cairo tin's calm pale ground so it does not tip into clutter.
- Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino) Contrasts · Both are lithographic trades of the Spanish-speaking world that print naturalistic paintings, but the Havana label frames allegories, medals and arms in borders within borders around a brand lettered on the stone, while the cartel vignettes one scene and sets a long programme below it in type.
- Plain Tobacco Packaging Contrasts · The gilded, embossed and bordered cigar label is everything a plain pack is forbidden to be; set the two side by side to show how much of tobacco's appeal was carried by ornament alone.
With Victorian Letterpress
- Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering Pairs well · Sign writers and type founders traded letterforms; add brushed shading and drop shadows to wood-type headlines for a street-made feel.
- Push Pin Style Pairs well · Push Pin revived Victorian display faces with irony; mix one wood-type headline with modern illustration for the same knowing nostalgia.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · One face, flush left and white space against a centred clamour of faces: use the contrast to test whether hierarchy needs variety at all.
- Arts & Crafts Movement Contrasts · Morris reacted against exactly this commercial clutter; set the two side by side to show craft restraint versus jobbing exuberance.
- HfG Ulm Systematic Design Contrasts · A Victorian mixed-face handbill is the clutter Ulm's one-family rule was meant to cure; use it as a before-and-after foil.
- Victorian Colour Toy Books (Evans, Crane, Caldecott and Greenaway) Contrasts · Its black-letter-dense, type-and-ornament jobbing page is the opposite of a picture-led page; combine them by hanging a wood-type title over a flat colour picture.
- Dada Pairs well · Raid Victorian wood type and stock ornaments as the Dadaists did, but scatter them instead of centring them.
- American Four-Colour Comic Book (Golden to Bronze Age) Pairs well · Both are cheap letterpress print that shouts to passers-by; borrow the playbill's stacked display capitals, banners and rules for a comic cover's blurbs and price box, while keeping the comic's hand-drawn letters and keyline art.