Stylogeny combining Japanese Postwar Modernism × Taishō Roman

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Style combination · Contrasts

Japanese Postwar Modernism × Taishō Roman

Postwar modernism replaced this sentimental figure with emblems and empty fields; set one against the other to calibrate warmth against austerity.

From the research on Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration

Mix them and make something Japanese Postwar Modernism Taishō Roman

BloomJapanese Postwar × Taishō Roman1950 · 1910
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Taishō Roman, their arrangement from Japanese Postwar Modernism, the finish from Taishō Roman. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Japanese Postwar Modernism Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration

Type from Taishō Roman
Colour from Japanese Postwar Modernism
Form from Taishō Roman
Composition from Japanese Postwar Modernism
Surface from Taishō Roman

02

The type

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

Display · Taishō Roman

Bloom

Federant, standing in for Art Nouveau-style Latin display lettering

Text · Japanese Postwar Modernism

Building on the New Typography that Hiromu Hara and the Nippon Kobo circle had absorbed in the 1930s, Japan's postwar graphic designers fused the grid, sans-serif and objective photography of European modernism with indigenous traditions of family crests (kamon), asymmetry and charged emptiness (ma). From the Graphic '55 exhibition and the Nippon Design Center to Yusaku Kamekura's Tokyo 1964 Olympic posters, it produced bold emblematic symbols, luminous flat colour fields and photography of startling precision.

Zen Kaku Gothic New; Japanese Postwar Modernism used Gothic and Mincho

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Japanese Postwar Modernism, with a counter-accent from Taishō Roman. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Japanese Postwar Modernism Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration

  • #f4f1ea ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #d7261e accent · 18%
  • #c8a24a accent · 14%
  • #1d3c78 accent · 10%
  • #d98b8f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #d7261e;
  --accent-2: #c8a24a;
  --accent-3: #1d3c78;
  --accent-4: #d98b8f;
  --font-display: "Federant", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
}

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The two styles

A large red sun sits above and behind a black triangular mountain with a gold tip on an off-white background. Bold black characters reading “太陽” appear in the upper-left corner. 1950–1990 · East Asia Japanese Postwar Modernism Building on the New Typography that Hiromu Hara and the Nippon Kobo circle had absorbed in the 1930s, Japan's postwar graphic designers fused the grid, sans-serif and objective photography of European modernism with indigenous traditions of family crests (kamon), asymmetry and charged emptiness (ma). From the Graphic '55 exhibition and the Nippon Design Center to Yusaku Kamekura's Tokyo 1964 Olympic posters, it produced bold emblematic symbols, luminous flat colour fields and photography of startling precision. 1910–1940 · East Asia Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration The lyrical illustration (jojōga) of late-Meiji to early-Shōwa Japan, led by Takehisa Yumeji: willowy, large-eyed women in kimono drawn with an Art Nouveau contour, set among camellias and kimono patterns and lettered by hand. Made for sheet-music covers, girls' magazines, postcards and paper goods, it is intimate and melancholic rather than ornamental, and its eyes and moods passed through Nakahara Jun'ichi into shōjo manga.

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More combinations

With Japanese Postwar Modernism

All 26 combinations with Japanese Postwar Modernism

With Taishō Roman

All 11 combinations with Taishō Roman

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