Style combination · Contrasts

Edo-moji Commercial Lettering × Korean Commercial Calligraphy

Edo-moji packs fat, gapless brush letters into crowded columns for a full house; Korean commercial calligraphy lets one airy, expressive word breathe, so decide between a crowd-pulling block and a personal gesture.

From the research on Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi)

Mix them and make something Edo-moji Commercial Lettering Korean Commercial Calligraphy

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Edo-moji Commercial Lettering, their arrangement from Korean Commercial Calligraphy, the finish from Korean Commercial Calligraphy. 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.

Edo-moji Commercial Lettering (Kanteiryū, Yose-moji, Sumō-ji) Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi)

Type from Edo-moji Commercial Lettering: Hand-lettering
Tight setting
Colour from Edo-moji Commercial Lettering: Monochrome
Flat fields
Form from Edo-moji Commercial Lettering: Rounded & pill
Rectilinear
Composition from Korean Commercial Calligraphy: Isolated object
Single focal point
Surface from Korean Commercial Calligraphy: Painterly brushwork

The type

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

Display · Edo-moji Commercial Lettering

Home

Yatra One; Edo-moji Commercial Lettering used Kanteiryū (勘亭流, shibai-moji) and Yose-moji (寄席文字)

Text · Korean Commercial Calligraphy

Brush-written Hangul made for commerce, not the scroll. From Kim Jong-gun's studio Philmuk (1999) and Kang Byung-in's Sooltong institute (2002), calligraphers trained in seoye write one word or a short phrase in ink and use it as the logotype or title of soju labels, ramyeon packs, film posters, TV dramas and book covers. Strokes swell, pool and dry out, and letters are bent to picture their meaning, so 'bom' (spring) sprouts like grass. The word stands alone in black on a pale ground, or as the one hand-made thing over a photograph.

Zen Maru Gothic; Korean Commercial Calligraphy used Gungche (궁체), the palace style of Hangul seoye in regular, semi-cursive and cursive forms, a trained hand some commercial calligraphers start from, though Kang names Chusa's Hanja writing as his model and many brush-pen hobbyists have no seoye training and Panbonche (판본체), modelled on the woodblock Hangul of the Hunminjeongeum, and minche (민체), the less regular folk style

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Edo-moji Commercial Lettering, with a counter-accent from Korean Commercial Calligraphy. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Edo-moji Commercial Lettering (Kanteiryū, Yose-moji, Sumō-ji) Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi)

#f4efe3 ground · 36%
#151311 ink · 14%
#b8312a accent · 18%
#d8c8a0 accent · 14%
#2f5d50 accent · 10%
#6e6a64 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4efe3;
  --ink: #151311;
  --accent-1: #b8312a;
  --accent-2: #d8c8a0;
  --accent-3: #2f5d50;
  --accent-4: #6e6a64;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Edo-moji Commercial Lettering (Kanteiryū, Yose-moji, Sumō-ji): These are living professional hands: Kanteiryū is written by kabuki calligraphers, yose-moji is taught by the Tachibana school, and sumō-ji is the trained duty of the Japan Sumo Association's gyōji, so commission or credit those writers instead of passing off a font as their work. Senjafuda are votive slips left at shrines and temples and the banzuke's 蒙御免 is a formula of sumo tradition; do not print real shrine names, performers' names or rankings as decoration, and draw characters with their real meanings rather than as pseudo-Japanese texture.

Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi): Kaelligeurapi is a living profession with named authors: commission or credit a calligrapher, never trace or imitate a published logotype such as Chamisul's or Hwayo's, which belong to their brands, and never present a generated hand as the work of Kang Byung-in, Kim Jong-gun or another named writer. Have every word written or checked by a fluent Hangul reader, since image models produce pseudo-Hangul with broken or misplaced jamo and Korean buyers spot a misspelt syllable at once. It grew from Korean seoye, a tradition distinct from Chinese shufa and Japanese shodō, so do not label it Chinese or Japanese or swap Hanja or kana in for Hangul, and do not stamp a red seal bearing a real person's name without their consent.