Style combination · Contrasts
Emblem Book × Imagerie d'Épinal
Both centre a framed picture over a block of text, but the Épinal sheet tells a popular story in stencil colour for a broad public, while the emblem is a learned monochrome riddle, one to a page, read slowly in sequence.
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.
Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram) Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen
- Type from Emblem Book
- Colour from Imagerie d'Épinal
- Form from Imagerie d'Épinal
- Composition from Emblem Book
- Surface from Emblem Book
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Emblem Book
Pop
Cinzel, standing in for Letterspaced roman capitals for the mottoes of Steyner's 1531 Augsburg edition, as 'REVERENTIAM IN MATRIMONIO REQVIRI', broken over two centred lines above the woodcut, with the couplets in italic below, alternate lines indented
Text · Imagerie d'Épinal
Cheap single-sheet popular prints sold by pedlars across 19th-century Europe, led by the Pellerin imagerie at Épinal and the Neuruppin Bilderbogen. A black woodcut, and later a lithograph, was coloured by hand through stencils in a few flat colours that drift past the outlines: Napoleonic battles, saints, rows of soldiers to cut out, and stories told in grids of equal captioned cases, under a title in roman capitals, or Fraktur in Germany.
Bodoni Moda; Imagerie d'Épinal used Bold modern-face (Didone) roman capitals for the centred title, sometimes shaded or outlined and Small roman text in a justified block beneath the picture, with the imprint ('De la fabrique de Pellerin, imprimeur-libraire, à Épinal') in capitals and 'Propriété de l'Éditeur. Déposé.' in italic
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Imagerie d'Épinal, with a counter-accent from Emblem Book. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram) Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen
-
#efe6ccground · 36% -
#1c1a17ink · 14% -
#e4bb3aaccent · 18% -
#8a6a45accent · 14% -
#b8283aaccent · 10% -
#c9b48faccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe6cc;
--ink: #1c1a17;
--accent-1: #e4bb3a;
--accent-2: #8a6a45;
--accent-3: #b8283a;
--accent-4: #c9b48f;
--font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
--font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}Use it with care
Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen: Many sheets carry nationalist, militarist and colonial messages, from the Napoleonic legend to colonial campaigns such as the Tonkin war, and some show colonised peoples as 'savages' (the Kühn Robinson sheet captions 'die Wilden' slaughtering captives at a feast), so do not reproduce these figures as period charm; the Imagerie d'Épinal still trades under its name, so draw new sheets rather than copying its marks.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Emblem Book
- Renaissance Book Typography Contrasts · Its parent shares the humanist roman and italic, the paper and the woodcut, but lets text carry the page with ornament at its edges; the emblem book puts a framed picture at the centre of every page and makes it part of the argument.
- Surrealist Graphics Pairs well · Both find meaning in the gap between a picture and the words beside it; pair a framed, uncanny object with a terse motto above and a short verse below for an editorial series that asks to be decoded.
- Corporate Identity Modernism Pairs well · The emblem's motto-plus-sign unit already works like a mark with a tagline; reduce its allegorical picture to one flat, repeatable sign with corporate modernism's discipline and keep the motto as the line beneath it.
- European Heraldry Contrasts · Alciato's book opens with the arms of the Duchy of Milan, but a coat of arms identifies a bearer by the rules of blazon, while an emblem is a freely invented moral riddle that needs its motto and verse; use arms to identify and an emblem to argue.
- Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards Contrasts · The emblem book explains its picture with a printed motto and epigram on the page, while the tarot gives only a carved title and a numeral and leaves the meaning to play or reading; choose the emblem book when the text must carry the argument.
With Imagerie d'Épinal
- Lubok Popular Print Contrasts · Both are pedlars' broadsheets coloured by hand, but the lubok crams verse into the gaps around its figures and brushes washes on freely, while the Épinal sheet keeps its text beneath a ruled frame and stencils colour across rows of repeated figures; choose the lubok for jostling satire and Épinal for an orderly catalogue or story.
- Mexican Popular Graphics (Posada) Pairs well · Posada's hojas volantes are another pedlar broadsheet with a crude relief picture over a block of text; add Épinal's stencil colour to a black relief broadsheet for a hand-coloured street print.
- Isotype Pictorial Statistics Pairs well · Both line up identical figures in rows, Épinal to be cut out as toy soldiers and Isotype to count; borrow Isotype's rule that one figure stands for a quantity to turn a sheet of soldiers into a readable chart.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Riso's few flat inks and drifting registration reproduce the stencil float of an Épinal sheet; print rows of repeated figures in red, blue and yellow over a black key for a contemporary imagerie.
- Ligne Claire (Franco-Belgian Clear Line) Pairs well · Both read as captioned grids of drawn cases with clear contour and flat colour; give a clear-line strip Épinal's stencil drift, roman-capital title and caption under every case for a 19th-century picture-story feel.
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Contrasts · The same century's printers, but jobbing letterpress leads with mixed display type in one or two inks, while the Épinal sheet leads with a stencil-coloured picture and keeps type to a title and a caption block; set them side by side to choose between a notice and a picture.
- Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards Contrasts · Both stencil-colour a black woodcut key in a few drifting colours, but the Épinal sheet tells a story in grids of captioned cases and marches rows of soldiers, while the tarot card isolates one emblematic subject under a numeral and a title; choose tarot for a single symbol, Épinal for a sequence.
- Lotería Card Imagery (Mexican Lotería) Contrasts · Both are cheap coloured popular prints of stock figures in ruled frames under capital captions, but an Épinal sheet tells a story or musters a row of soldiers across many cases, while a lotería card holds one emblem and the tabla's cells have no order: the caller draws them by chance.