Style combination · Contrasts

Greek Tourism Modernism × Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

Both are 1960s national modernisms that turned heritage into modern posters: Tehran built it from calligraphic letterforms, EOT from photographed antiquities under a single word of sans; compare them to choose between letter-led and object-led heritage modernism.

From the research on Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT)

Mix them and make something Greek Tourism Modernism Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design, their arrangement from Greek Tourism Modernism, the finish from Greek Tourism Modernism. 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.

Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT) Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

Type from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering
Colour from Greek Tourism Modernism: Flat fields
Limited spot colours
Form from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design: Stylised figuration
Folk & sacred symbols
Composition from Greek Tourism Modernism: Isolated object
Single focal point
Surface from Greek Tourism Modernism: Flat

The type

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

Display · Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

Still

Rakkas, standing in for Nastaʿlīq

Text · Greek Tourism Modernism

The modernist image of Greece made for the National Tourism Organisation (EOT) by Michalis Katzourakis, its art adviser in 1960-1967, and by Frederick Carabott, who advised it until 1967; in 1962 the two also founded the K&K Athens Advertising Centre. A poster sets one Hellenic sign (a photographed relief, vase or statue, a Byzantine dome) on flat saturated colour or, full-bleed, a mosaic or a woven ship, under the country's name, often one lowercase word in bold sans: grèce, greece. After 1967 photography gradually took over, but other designers kept the manner going at EOT under the junta.

Inter; Greek Tourism Modernism used Bold sans-serif in lowercase, geometric or grotesque, for the one-word country name (grèce, greece, griechenland), most often on the EOT posters of 1960-1963, and still on 'athens festival' in 1974 and Widely spaced roman serif capitals

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Greek Tourism Modernism, with a counter-accent from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT) Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

#141414 ground · 36%
#f3efe6 ink · 14%
#f2c230 accent · 18%
#c49a3a accent · 14%
#b0322a accent · 10%
#1f3f9c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #141414;
  --ink: #f3efe6;
  --accent-1: #f2c230;
  --accent-2: #c49a3a;
  --accent-3: #b0322a;
  --accent-4: #1f3f9c;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT): Many of these posters picture Byzantine churches and monasteries, such as Mystras and island chapels, that remain active Orthodox sacred places, and borrow woven and mosaic motifs from living regional crafts: use them with that weight, not as interchangeable 'Greek' decoration. The style is also a state nation-branding image made for foreign visitors, and other designers went on making EOT posters in this manner, beside colour photography, under the 1967-1974 military dictatorship, so do not present its sunlit antiquity as a neutral picture of Greece. Commercial reuse of photographs of Greek monuments and museum antiquities also needs permission from, and a fee to, the Greek state (Law 4858/2021, article 46), so clear any statue, relief or site photograph before using it in new work.

The two styles

1960–1974 · Southern Europe Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT) The modernist image of Greece made for the National Tourism Organisation (EOT) by Michalis Katzourakis, its art adviser in 1960-1967, and by Frederick Carabott, who advised it until 1967; in 1962 the two also founded the K&K Athens Advertising Centre. A poster sets one Hellenic sign (a photographed relief, vase or statue, a Byzantine dome) on flat saturated colour or, full-bleed, a mosaic or a woven ship, under the country's name, often one lowercase word in bold sans: grèce, greece. After 1967 photography gradually took over, but other designers kept the manner going at EOT under the junta.

Large black Persian calligraphy fills a cream, lightly textured poster, with a golden three-leaf sprout rising in front of a red sun. A blue, rippling reflection tapers downward beneath the lettering.

1960–present · Middle East & North Africa Iranian Modernist Graphic Design Iranian graphic design came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Morteza Momayez, Farshid Mesghali, Ghobad Shiva and Guity Novin worked for magazines, the Kanoon children's institute and film and arts festivals, and built a modern visual language from Persian calligraphy, miniature and folk imagery and the conceptual poster of the Polish school. From the 1990s Reza Abedini's generation made Persian letterforms themselves into dense, architectural poster compositions.