Stylogeny combining Cranbrook × International Typographic Style

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Style combination · Contrasts

Cranbrook × International Typographic Style

Swiss clarity is the master narrative Cranbrook took apart; keep one Swiss column as a legible anchor in a deconstructed spread.

From the research on Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography

Mix them and make something Cranbrook International Typographic Style

IndexCranbrook × International Typographic
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from International Typographic Style, 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 International Typographic Style

Type from Cranbrook

International Typographic Style avoids eclectic mixing: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Colour from International Typographic Style
Form from International Typographic Style
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 · Cranbrook

Index

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

Text · International Typographic Style

A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

03

The colours

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

Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography International Typographic Style

  • #f2f0e9 ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #e1251b accent · 18%
  • #1f4e9c accent · 14%
  • #c99a2e accent · 10%
  • #7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-3: #c99a2e;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --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. The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right. 1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

05

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