Stylogeny combining Glasgow Style × Victorian Letterpress

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Style combination · Contrasts

Glasgow Style × Victorian Letterpress

Use Victorian clutter as a foil to show how Glasgow's restraint and verticality cleared the page.

From the research on Glasgow Style

Mix them and make something Glasgow Style Victorian Letterpress

AMOURAMOURGlasgow Style × Victorian Letterpress
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Glasgow Style, their arrangement from Glasgow Style, the finish from Victorian Letterpress. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Glasgow Style Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

Type from Glasgow Style
Colour from Victorian Letterpress
Form from Glasgow Style
Composition from Glasgow Style
Surface from Victorian Letterpress

02

The type

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

Display · Glasgow Style

Amour

Poiret One; Glasgow Style used Charles Rennie Mackintosh's attenuated hand lettering and ITC Rennie Mackintosh

Text · Victorian Letterpress

The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.

Zilla Slab; Victorian Letterpress used Fat face romans and Egyptian / Antique slab serifs

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Victorian Letterpress, with a counter-accent from Glasgow Style. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Glasgow Style Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type

  • #efe4c9 ground · 36%
  • #1b1a17 ink · 14%
  • #b3322b accent · 18%
  • #c9768e accent · 14%
  • #d9b45a accent · 10%
  • #8e7aa8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe4c9;
  --ink: #1b1a17;
  --accent-1: #b3322b;
  --accent-2: #c9768e;
  --accent-3: #d9b45a;
  --accent-4: #8e7aa8;
  --font-display: "Poiret One", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zilla Slab", serif;
}

04

The two styles

1890–1914 · Western Europe Glasgow Style Glasgow's distinctive answer to Art Nouveau, formed around Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret and Frances Macdonald and Herbert MacNair at the Glasgow School of Art. It sets attenuated, ghostly figures and tight rosebuds against long vertical lines and small square lattices in tall, symmetrical compositions, balancing Celtic and Japanese restraint against continental exuberance. An ornate vintage-style poster reads “RIVER FAIR” in huge red and navy letters on distressed cream paper. A circular illustration of a paddle-wheel steamboat sits between the words, surrounded by floral scrollwork, patterned borders, and a rising sun. 1810–1900 · Western Europe, North America Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type The commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type). Lines are centred and each is set in a different face and size to fill the measure, framed in rules and stock borders and printed in black with one or two flat colours.

05

More combinations

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With Victorian Letterpress

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