Style combination · Contrasts

Greek Tourism Modernism × International Typographic Style

Its parent by look rather than by training (neither designer studied in Switzerland): it keeps the Swiss lowercase grotesque, flat spot colour and treated photograph, but drops the grid for one symbolic picture, often on a symmetrical axis; add a Swiss column grid when the text must say more than a country's name.

From the research on Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT)

Mix them and make something Greek Tourism Modernism International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Greek Tourism Modernism, 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) International Typographic Style

Type from International Typographic Style: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Type as image
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Greek Tourism Modernism: Stylised figuration
Rectilinear
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 · International Typographic Style

Order

Inter Tight, standing in for Akzidenz-Grotesk

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 International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Greek Tourism Modernism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#f2c230 accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#e8812a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #f2c230;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #e8812a;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --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.

The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right.

1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.