Stylogeny combining Cranbrook × Emigre

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Style combination · Pairs well

Cranbrook × Emigre

Emigre published Cranbrook work; set layered Cranbrook-style spreads in Emigre's early digital typefaces.

From the research on Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography

Mix them and make something Cranbrook Emigre

RiotCranbrook × Emigre1980 · 1984
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Emigre, their arrangement from Cranbrook, the finish from Cranbrook. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

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.

Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Emigre & Early Digital Type

Type from Emigre
Colour from Cranbrook
Form from Emigre
Composition from Cranbrook
Surface from Cranbrook

02

The type

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

Display · Emigre

Riot

Workbench; Emigre used Oakland and Emperor

Text · Cranbrook

Graduate-school experimentation, centred on Katherine and Michael McCoy's Cranbrook design programme, that applied post-structuralist literary theory to the page. Text and image were layered into dense fields to be read rather than merely seen; typographic hierarchy was fractured, vernacular lettering was mixed with theory, and meaning was left open for the reader to construct.

Inter; Cranbrook used Keedy Sans and Dead History

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Cranbrook, with a counter-accent from Emigre. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Emigre & Early Digital Type

  • #f2efe6 ground · 36%
  • #141414 ink · 14%
  • #d1342c accent · 18%
  • #c99a2e accent · 14%
  • #2b59c3 accent · 10%
  • #8a8780 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2efe6;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #d1342c;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #2b59c3;
  --accent-4: #8a8780;
  --font-display: "Workbench", monospace;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

A tall, distressed collage poster reads “GLASS RIVER” in oversized black, gray, and red letters. Black-and-white fragments of an eye, a bridge, water, mountains, and trees overlap mustard-yellow and red blocks, fine diagrams, and small text on an ivory background. 1980–1998 · North America Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Graduate-school experimentation, centred on Katherine and Michael McCoy's Cranbrook design programme, that applied post-structuralist literary theory to the page. Text and image were layered into dense fields to be read rather than merely seen; typographic hierarchy was fractured, vernacular lettering was mixed with theory, and meaning was left open for the reader to construct. Oversized, distorted letters spell “DATA NOiSE” in black, red and blue on an off-white background. Pixelated edges, dotted textures, scattered squares and intersecting rules surround and interrupt the lettering. 1984–1998 · North America Emigre & Early Digital Type Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko's magazine and type foundry, launched in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh, turned the computer's low-resolution constraints into a new typographic idiom. Licko's bitmap and modular faces, VanderLans's shifting, layered layouts and the magazine's showcase of Cranbrook and CalArts work made Emigre the laboratory and mouthpiece of digital postmodern typography.

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More combinations

With Cranbrook

With Emigre

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