Style combination · Pairs well
Di Tella Graphic Design × Phototype Expressive Typography
Both made the word the picture in the same years; add Lubalin's tight, playful letter-joins to Di Tella's blunt flat-ink title for a headline-led identity.
Mix them and make something Di Tella Graphic Design Phototype Expressive Typography
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.
Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) Phototype Expressive Typography (Lubalin & U&lc)
- Type from Phototype Expressive Typography
- Colour from Di Tella Graphic Design
- Form from Di Tella Graphic Design
- Composition from Phototype Expressive Typography
- Surface from Di Tella Graphic Design
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The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Phototype Expressive Typography
Pop
Josefin Sans, standing in for ITC Avant Garde Gothic (Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, 1970; 33 alternate characters and interlocking capital ligatures)
Text · Di Tella Graphic Design
The in-house graphics of Buenos Aires' Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1960–1970, led by Juan Carlos Distéfano with Juan Andralis, Rubén Fontana, Norberto Coppola and Carlos Soler. Swiss order is turned on the avant-garde art it announced: title words blown up into the picture, optical stripes, one or two flat inks (letterpress programmes, offset street posters), square catalogues and double-square programmes. Its rule was that limited means make the style. Fontana later carried its typography into the University of Buenos Aires design course and the magazine tipoGráfica.
Inter; Di Tella Graphic Design used Helvetica and Hand-drawn condensed grotesque capitals
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Di Tella Graphic Design, with a counter-accent from Phototype Expressive Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) Phototype Expressive Typography (Lubalin & U&lc)
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#f3f0e8ground · 36% -
#111111ink · 14% -
#f5c400accent · 18% -
#d1322baccent · 14% -
#b89668accent · 10% -
#8a8479accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f3f0e8;
--ink: #111111;
--accent-1: #f5c400;
--accent-2: #d1322b;
--accent-3: #b89668;
--accent-4: #8a8479;
--font-display: "Josefin Sans", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
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More combinations
With Di Tella Graphic Design
- Op Art Graphics Pairs well · The CLAEM programmes and the Premio Di Tella 64 poster already speak Op; run one heavy grotesque title through an optical field, as Distéfano did, for an event that should vibrate.
- Fileteado Porteño Contrasts · Same city, opposite choice: Buenos Aires' ornamental filete against the Di Tella's ornament-free flat-ink modernism; set side by side they show the porteño vernacular and the porteño avant-garde.
- Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC) Contrasts · Cuba's state screenprints used many bright inks for political messages, the Di Tella one or two flat inks for avant-garde events; together they show two Latin American poster cultures of the 1960s.
- Brazilian Concrete Design Pairs well · The other South American modernism of the 1960s; pair São Paulo's concrete modules with Buenos Aires' event-led giant type for a Southern Cone modernist programme.
- Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism Pairs well · Two Latin American cultural presses of the 1960s working in one or two inks: add the Di Tella's giant title word to Rojo's framed image and ordered text for a cultural programme or catalogue.
- Lucerne Poster Scene (Neubad & Südpol Posters) Pairs well · Both make the event title an optical picture for a small cultural institution under tight means; add the Di Tella's one or two flat inks and blunt grotesque to a Lucerne letter construction for a sterner, more 1960s sheet.
With Phototype Expressive Typography
- Hipster Artisanal Revival Contrasts · Both pair a script with a geometric sans, but the craft badge tracks its capitals wide in a centred one-ink frame, while Lubalin kerns the same pairing until the letters touch and join. Set one against the other to decide whether the letters should breathe or fuse.
- Push Pin Style Pairs well · Push Pin revives old styles through drawn figures and Lubalin through the letters themselves; pair a Push Pin illustration with a swash, tightly kerned Lubalin headline for full 1970s New York warmth.
- Blue Note Jazz Sleeve Modernism Pairs well · Same New York years and the same belief that the title can be the picture; give a Miles-style tinted photograph a Lubalin logotype whose letters touch and interlock instead of a plain blown-up grotesque.
- Emigre & Early Digital Type Contrasts · Both were made by a new type technology; Emigre's bitmap and PostScript faces end the phototype era, so set a Lubalin ligature against a coarse bitmap word to show how the tool shapes the letter.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Even spacing, flush-left grotesque and a grid against letters squeezed until they fuse into one centred logotype: put the two side by side to decide whether type should stay neutral or carry the joke.
- Post-Binary Typography (Bye Bye Binary and Inclusive French Type) Contrasts · Both make new meaning by interlocking letters into ligatures, but Lubalin's phototype ligatures are tight-set display wit for headlines and logotypes, while post-binary ligatures carry gender inside the word, in running French text as well as on banners; choose Lubalin for a witty headline, post-binary glyphs when the grammar of the word is the message.
- Fluxus Graphics (Maciunas) Contrasts · Same New York years and the same habit of locking letters together until they touch, but Lubalin kerned polished phototype for advertising while Maciunas pressed leftover dry-transfer letters into puzzle monograms on kraft; choose between the commercial ligature and the scavenged one.
- Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering) Pairs well · Lubalin's phototype logotypes also merge neighbouring letters into ligatures and crowd them into a single shape; borrow vyaz's shared stems and nested small letters for a Cyrillic logotype, and keep it to one or two words so it stays readable.