Stylogeny combining Cranbrook × Renaissance Book Typography

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Style combination · Contrasts

Cranbrook × Renaissance Book Typography

The single justified book block is what deconstruction questions; quoting it inside a layered layout makes the critique explicit.

From the research on Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography

Mix them and make something Cranbrook Renaissance Book Typography

AtlasCranbrook × Renaissance Book1980 · 1460
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Renaissance Book Typography, their arrangement from Cranbrook, the finish from Renaissance Book Typography. 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 Renaissance Book Typography

Type from Cranbrook

Renaissance Book Typography avoids eclectic mixing: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Colour from Cranbrook
Form from Renaissance Book Typography
Composition from Cranbrook
Surface from Renaissance Book Typography

02

The type

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

Display · Cranbrook

Atlas

Inter Tight, standing in for Univers and Helvetica, fragmented and layered

Text · Renaissance Book Typography

The printed book as shaped by humanist Italy and France: roman and italic types modelled on humanist handwriting, a single justified text block set in harmonious proportions within generous margins, and woodcut initials, borders and printer's devices as the only ornament. Its page became the default model of the Western book for the next five centuries.

EB Garamond; Renaissance Book Typography used Jenson's roman and Griffo's roman

03

The colours

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

Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Renaissance Book Typography

  • #f2efe6 ground · 36%
  • #141414 ink · 14%
  • #d1342c accent · 18%
  • #c99a2e accent · 14%
  • #8a8780 accent · 10%
  • #8a6e4b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2efe6;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #d1342c;
  --accent-2: #c99a2e;
  --accent-3: #8a8780;
  --accent-4: #8a6e4b;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", 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. An aged cream book cover reads “THE GARDEN OF REASON” above a symmetrical illustration of a fruit-bearing tree flanked by two birds and flowering plants. Black leafy vines, rust-red flowers, and ochre leaves fill a rectangular ornamental border. c. 1460–1600 · Southern Europe, Western Europe, Central Europe Renaissance Book Typography The printed book as shaped by humanist Italy and France: roman and italic types modelled on humanist handwriting, a single justified text block set in harmonious proportions within generous margins, and woodcut initials, borders and printer's devices as the only ornament. Its page became the default model of the Western book for the next five centuries.

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