Stylogeny combining Di Tella Graphic Design × Vicente Rojo

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Style combination · Pairs well

Di Tella Graphic Design × Vicente Rojo

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.

From the research on Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism

Mix them and make something Di Tella Graphic Design Vicente Rojo

FormDi Tella × Vicente Rojo1960 · 1953
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Vicente Rojo, their arrangement from Di Tella Graphic Design, the finish from Vicente Rojo. 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.

Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism

Type from Di Tella Graphic Design
Colour from Di Tella Graphic Design
Form from Vicente Rojo
Composition from Di Tella Graphic Design
Surface from Vicente Rojo

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The type

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

Display · Di Tella Graphic Design

Form

Inter Tight, standing in for Helvetica (with other neo-grotesques for titles and fact blocks; identified on the 1962 sculpture-prize poster by the UNCuyo reader)

Text · Vicente Rojo

The design of Mexico City's literary and cultural press, shaped from the 1950s by the Barcelona-born exile Vicente Rojo: México en la Cultura, the Revista de la Universidad, Plural, La Jornada and the covers of Ediciones Era. Taught by Miguel Prieto to add nothing beyond what must be read, it sets an image on white inside a fine rule, orders text with the printer's stock (rules, bullets, stars, pointing hands), prints grainy high-contrast photographs in two inks, and keeps design below the text.

Jost; Vicente Rojo used Bodoni and Egyptian slab serifs

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Di Tella Graphic Design, with a counter-accent from Vicente Rojo. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism

  • #f3f0e8 ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #f5c400 accent · 18%
  • #e04a1f accent · 14%
  • #b89668 accent · 10%
  • #d9a820 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3f0e8;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #f5c400;
  --accent-2: #e04a1f;
  --accent-3: #b89668;
  --accent-4: #d9a820;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism: Rojo's covers, his drawn alphabets and the T of his Negaciones paintings are one artist's work: borrow the method (a white ground, a fine rule, the printer's stock, a two-ink treated photograph), not a particular Era cover or his signs, and never present a new design as an Era book. Some covers draw on pre-Hispanic codices (Los indios de México) and Mexican popular imagery (Cien años de soledad); do not lift codex figures as decoration.

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The two styles

Huge, narrow black letters spelling “RITMO” fill a cream poster. Their lower portions extend into repeated curved bands and horizontal stripes, interspersed with bright yellow vertical blocks. 1960–1970 · Latin America & Caribbean Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella) 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. A cream poster headed “TIERRA” in huge black serif letters shows a grainy blue prickly pear cactus and rocky ground in front of a large orange sun. Orange dots, horizontal black and orange bars, and thin vertical lines frame the image. 1953–1990 · Latin America & Caribbean Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism The design of Mexico City's literary and cultural press, shaped from the 1950s by the Barcelona-born exile Vicente Rojo: México en la Cultura, the Revista de la Universidad, Plural, La Jornada and the covers of Ediciones Era. Taught by Miguel Prieto to add nothing beyond what must be read, it sets an image on white inside a fine rule, orders text with the printer's stock (rules, bullets, stars, pointing hands), prints grainy high-contrast photographs in two inks, and keeps design below the text.

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