Stylogeny combining Czech Poetist Book Design × Surrealist Graphics

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Style combination · Pairs well

Czech Poetist Book Design × Surrealist Graphics

Štyrský and Toyen pushed this montage toward dream imagery; add one uncanny juxtaposition to tip a lyrical cover into the strange.

From the research on Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil)

Mix them and make something Czech Poetist Book Design Surrealist Graphics

ReverieCzech Poetist × Surrealist Graphics
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Surrealist Graphics, their arrangement from Czech Poetist Book Design, the finish from Surrealist Graphics. 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.

Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil) Surrealist Graphics

Type from Czech Poetist Book Design
Colour from Czech Poetist Book Design
Form from Surrealist Graphics
Composition from Czech Poetist Book Design
Surface from Surrealist Graphics

02

The type

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

Display · Czech Poetist Book Design

Reverie

Inter Tight, standing in for Jobbing grotesque capitals from Prague print shops

Text · Surrealist Graphics

Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bodoni Moda; Surrealist Graphics used Artists' hand-lettered mastheads and Didone and Victorian display faces lifted from 19th-century catalogues

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Czech Poetist Book Design, with a counter-accent from Surrealist Graphics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil) Surrealist Graphics

  • #f2ebdc ground · 36%
  • #161514 ink · 14%
  • #e9b52c accent · 18%
  • #a24a2a accent · 14%
  • #d22f22 accent · 10%
  • #d8b77a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2ebdc;
  --ink: #161514;
  --accent-1: #e9b52c;
  --accent-2: #a24a2a;
  --accent-3: #d22f22;
  --accent-4: #d8b77a;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}

04

The two styles

A retro travel poster reading “SOLAR TRIP” combines a large black-and-white image of a smiling woman in a swimsuit with a coastal town, a vintage bus on a winding seaside road, and divers above the water. Red diagonal shapes, blue stripes and sea, a yellow sun, and rows of dots decorate the cream background. 1922–1938 · Central Europe Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil) The book and magazine design of the Czech Devětsil circle, where Karel Teige and his colleagues turned constructivist tools (asymmetry, sans and slab capitals, heavy bars, photomontage) toward Poetism's lyrical celebration of travel, cinema, jazz and the circus. Covers and 'picture poems' set type among postcards, ocean liners and aeroplanes, and in Abeceda (1926) a dancer's body poses as each letter of the alphabet. A distressed, surreal collage combines a large woman's face with a curling seashell, stone staircases, ruined arches, and cliffside buildings above a blue sea. An orange fish floats in the foreground, a tiny person stands on the stairs, and a golden disc hangs among clouds beside the title “The Drift.” 1924–1960 · Western Europe, North America Surrealist Graphics Launched by André Breton's 1924 manifesto, Surrealism sought the marvellous in dreams, chance and the unconscious. Its graphic legacy (uncanny collage from old engravings, solarised and cameraless photographs, impossible juxtapositions painted with illusionistic precision) passed through magazines like Minotaure into fashion, advertising and book design on both sides of the Atlantic.

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More combinations

With Czech Poetist Book Design

With Surrealist Graphics

All 18 combinations with Surrealist Graphics

Every style combination