Style combination · Contrasts

Diné Weaving Design × Northwest Coast Formline Design

Both are North American Indigenous systems. Formline is figurative, curvilinear and built on crests, and Diné weaving is abstract, angular and terraced. Never merge them into a generic 'Native' pattern.

From the research on Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design

Mix them and make something Diné Weaving Design Northwest Coast Formline Design

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Diné Weaving Design, their arrangement from Northwest Coast Formline Design, the finish from Northwest Coast Formline Design. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design Northwest Coast Formline Design

Type from Diné Weaving Design
Colour from Diné Weaving Design: Earth & mineral
Flat fields
Form from Diné Weaving Design: Angular & zigzag
Non-representational
Composition from Northwest Coast Formline Design: Central symmetry
Horror vacui
Surface from Northwest Coast Formline Design: Carved line
Flat

The type

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

Display · Diné Weaving Design

Halo

Pixelify Sans, standing in for Stepped capitals built on the weft grid when a title has to share the woven field, such as Silkscreen or another pixel face drawn on the same square grid

Text · Northwest Coast Formline Design

The two-dimensional design system of the northern Northwest Coast nations, painted, carved and woven onto boxes, house fronts, robes and hats, and printed as serigraphs since the 1960s. A continuous black primary formline that swells and tapers joins ovoids, U-forms and S-forms into hereditary crest beings, with red secondary lines and blue-green tertiary areas. The figure is split, splayed and compressed until it fills its field.

Archivo; Northwest Coast Formline Design used Hand-lettered captions and titling in Yahgulanaas's Haida Manga and Latin faces with full Lingít and X̱aad Kíl orthographic support (x̱, g̱, ḵ), e.g. Noto Sans, for accompanying text

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Diné Weaving Design, with a counter-accent from Northwest Coast Formline Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design Northwest Coast Formline Design

#ede6d6 ground · 36%
#1c1814 ink · 14%
#d8682a accent · 18%
#a8261d accent · 14%
#b98a5e accent · 10%
#27375e accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ede6d6;
  --ink: #1c1814;
  --accent-1: #d8682a;
  --accent-2: #a8261d;
  --accent-3: #b98a5e;
  --accent-4: #27375e;
  --font-display: "Pixelify Sans", monospace;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design: Diné weaving is a living craft, taught within families and tied to the Diné account of Spider Woman, who taught the first weavers to build the loom. It has also been suggested that the Diné learned weaving from Pueblo neighbours, though how far is uncertain; give the Diné account first. Yeibichai and sandpainting designs depict Holy People from healing ceremonies, and weaving them was controversial within the Navajo community even when Hastiin Klah, himself a ceremonial singer, did it. Do not reproduce Yei or sandpainting imagery. Diné weavers may leave a spirit line (Ch'ihónít'i), a deliberate break through a border that gives spiritual elements a way out of the textile; it is their practice, so do not add a spirit line or any 'meaning' to a design as decoration. Do not sell printed or machine-made 'Navajo pattern' as Indian-made: the US Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 prohibits that. The Navajo Nation also holds trademarks in the name 'Navajo', registered since 1943. It sued Urban Outfitters in 2012 over 'Navajo' and 'Navaho' product lines, and the case was settled in 2016 with a supply and licence agreement. Do not label non-Diné products or patterns 'Navajo'; the Nation expects companies to ask its permission before using its name, designs or motifs. Commission, pay and credit Diné weavers by name rather than copying their rugs, for example through the Crownpoint Rug Auction, run since 1968, with breaks, by a community organisation of weavers and volunteers.

Northwest Coast Formline Design: Formline images are hereditary crests: the raven, eagle, killer whale, bear, beaver and other beings belong to particular clans, houses and lineages, their display is tied to rights validated at potlatches and feasts, and some designs and stories are restricted. The tradition belongs to the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian and Heiltsuk nations, not to a generic 'Pacific Northwest' style. Commission or license work from artists of those nations, credit them by name and nation, and never redraw crests or assemble pseudo-formline from ovoids and U-forms.

The two styles

A rug-like geometric poster features symmetrical stepped diamonds, zigzags and cross motifs in rust red, orange, navy, cream, gray and black. The word “BALANCE” sits inside a large cream diamond at the center, surrounded by patterned borders.

1700–present · North America Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design The tapestry-woven design tradition of Diné (Navajo) weavers, recorded in Spanish sources from the early 18th century. Each design is planned as one symmetrical field and built weft by weft, so every diagonal steps. Striped blankets came first, some with terraced diamonds by 1804. After Bosque Redondo came eyedazzlers, Saltillo-derived serrated diamonds in bright Germantown yarn. Then came bordered trading-post rugs, some modelled on Oriental rugs, in regional codes such as Two Grey Hills and Ganado red. Contemporary tapestry artists such as DY Begay extend it into landscape and abstraction. 1700–present · North America Northwest Coast Formline Design The two-dimensional design system of the northern Northwest Coast nations, painted, carved and woven onto boxes, house fronts, robes and hats, and printed as serigraphs since the 1960s. A continuous black primary formline that swells and tapers joins ovoids, U-forms and S-forms into hereditary crest beings, with red secondary lines and blue-green tertiary areas. The figure is split, splayed and compressed until it fills its field.