Style combination · Pairs well

Finnish Bold Print × Skønvirke

Both enlarge abstract organic shapes; open up a dense Bindesbøll frame into a flat repeat for a lighter, modern Nordic take.

From the research on Skønvirke (Danish Art Nouveau, Bindesbøll)

Mix them and make something Finnish Bold Print Skønvirke

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Skønvirke, their arrangement from Finnish Bold Print, the finish from Finnish Bold Print. 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.

Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Skønvirke (Danish Art Nouveau, Bindesbøll)

Type from Skønvirke: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display
Colour from Finnish Bold Print: Flat fields
Limited spot colours
Form from Skønvirke: Non-representational
Biomorphic curves
Composition from Finnish Bold Print: All-over field
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Finnish Bold Print: Painterly brushwork
Flat

The type

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

Display · Skønvirke

Together

Londrina Solid, standing in for Bindesbøll's monograms, trademarks (bomærker), ex libris and letterheads (brevhoveder) for friends and firms, lettered by hand into their ornament (Den Store Danske)

Text · Finnish Bold Print

The printed-cotton modernism of Marimekko, founded in Helsinki in 1951 by Armi and Viljo Ratia out of Viljo's printing firm Printex. Its designers, chiefly Maija Isola, the first (1949-1987), with Vuokko Nurmesniemi (1953-1960) and from 1960 Annika Rimala, painted or cut one motif (stones, a poppy, waves, stripes), enlarged it to repeats often over half a metre and screen-printed it edge to edge in a few flat inks, often on white. It turns the Nordic ideal of good everyday things into one pattern for dress, curtain and home; from 1974 Fujiwo Ishimoto added brushstroke and calligraphic marks.

Inter; Finnish Bold Print used The Marimekko wordmark (in use since 1954) and Selvedge inscriptions repeated along the edge of the cloth, naming designer, pattern, maker, country and year

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Finnish Bold Print, with a counter-accent from Skønvirke. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Skønvirke (Danish Art Nouveau, Bindesbøll)

#f7f5f0 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#ef7d1a accent · 18%
#d4a32c accent · 14%
#d4211c accent · 10%
#a8322a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f7f5f0;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #ef7d1a;
  --accent-2: #d4a32c;
  --accent-3: #d4211c;
  --accent-4: #a8322a;
  --font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism): Many of the best-known patterns, Unikko and Kivet among them, are still produced by Marimekko and remain protected designs, so work in the manner rather than copying them. Folk sources carry two further, separate risks. Anonymous folk ornament can be living devotional material: the käspaikka, the Karelian linen towel named in Isola's 1959 print, is still used to dress icons in Orthodox churches and homes, so abstract such ornament rather than quote it, and keep it out of contexts that trivialise it. A named folk artist's work is authored, not a shared tradition: in 2013 Kristina Isola admitted that her 'Metsänväki' (2007), by then painted on a Finnair aircraft, copied elements of Maria Prymachenko's 1963 painting 'Rat on a Journey'; Finnair undertook to repaint the plane and Marimekko ended its collaboration with Kristina Isola in September 2013.