Style combination · Contrasts

Kamon × Thai Yantra Diagrams

Both are one-colour, symmetrical signs on cloth governed by inherited rules, but a mon is a wordless emblem of a family, varied in small codified ways and read at a glance, while a yantra is built from sacred script and read by initiates.

From the research on Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

Mix them and make something Kamon Thai Yantra Diagrams

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Kamon, their arrangement from Kamon, the finish from Thai Yantra Diagrams. 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.

Kamon (Japanese Family Crests) Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

Type from Thai Yantra Diagrams: Hand-lettering
Tight setting
Colour from Kamon: Monochrome
Flat fields
Form from Kamon: Pictogram
Emblems & badges
Composition from Kamon: Radial & concentric
Central symmetry
Surface from Thai Yantra Diagrams: Carved line
Flat

The type

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

Display · Thai Yantra Diagrams

Public

Yatra One; Thai Yantra Diagrams used Khom Thai (akson khom), the Khmer-derived script used for Pali formulae and heart syllables and Mul (round) Khmer script in Cambodian-lineage yantras, distinguishable from Khom only by small variants

Text · Kamon

Japan's family crests: small one-colour emblems that reduce a plant, animal, tool or pattern to a flat silhouette, mirrored or repeated around a centre, often ringed and drawn with compass and brush. Begun on Heian court carriages and spread to samurai and all of society, mon are usually inherited, granted or freely chosen rather than designed, varied in small codified ways for branch families, and placed in fixed positions on formal kimono, shop curtains, lacquer and banners. Covers the formal crest (jōmon), not the decorative coloured kaga-mon or pictorial date-mon and share-mon.

Shippori Mincho; Kamon used Kago-moji, the thick, squared Edo lettering often reversed out in white, for names set beside a crest and Brush-written kaisho (regular-script) kanji for shop names and family names on curtains and lanterns

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Kamon, with a counter-accent from Thai Yantra Diagrams. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Kamon (Japanese Family Crests) Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

#f3efe6 ground · 36%
#121212 ink · 14%
#b38f3d accent · 18%
#d9b44a accent · 14%
#8c2d25 accent · 10%
#1d2b47 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3efe6;
  --ink: #121212;
  --accent-1: #b38f3d;
  --accent-2: #d9b44a;
  --accent-3: #8c2d25;
  --accent-4: #1d2b47;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Kamon (Japanese Family Crests): Mon are inherited marks of particular families, shrines, temples and institutions. Only the imperial chrysanthemum is named in Japanese law: the Trademark Act (art. 4(1)(i)) bars registering it or anything like it. The government's paulownia, though the official emblem of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, was never given the same legal restrictions, while famous crests registered as trademarks, such as Mitsubishi's three diamonds, are protected as marks. Do not use the chrysanthemum, the government paulownia, or any identifiable family's, shrine's or temple's crest as decoration or as a brand. Imperial emblems can also recall Japan's wartime empire for audiences in Korea and China. The manji (卍), a standard crest (the Hachisuka clan; the temple crest of Sensō-ji), is read in the West as the Nazi swastika: avoid it outside a Japanese context that explains it. Draw new crests by the tradition's rules instead of borrowing real ones, and commission or credit working monsho uwaeshi, who still draw and paint crests by hand.

Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams: Yantras are consecrated Buddhist and Brahmanic protective diagrams in living use: their Khom formulae are incantations, sak yant are given by monks and ajarn within master–disciple lineages under precepts the wearer must keep, and pha yant are blessed objects hung high over doors. Do not use real or imitation yantras, Khom letters or Buddha images as texture, logos, fashion prints or tattoos without a master, do not place them low (on floors, footwear, seats) or crop and mirror them, do not invent pseudo-Khom, and work with Thai practitioners and readers of Khom rather than tracing designs from temples or tattoo photographs. Image models cannot write Khom and will invent letters: in generated images leave the cells blank or set legible secular Thai, and never present the result as a real or working yantra.

The two styles

A cream circular floral emblem sits on a black background, with six pointed leaves and six round-tipped stems arranged around a central disc. Below it, widely spaced serif capitals spell “HARMONY.”

c. 1100–present · East Asia Kamon (Japanese Family Crests) Japan's family crests: small one-colour emblems that reduce a plant, animal, tool or pattern to a flat silhouette, mirrored or repeated around a centre, often ringed and drawn with compass and brush. Begun on Heian court carriages and spread to samurai and all of society, mon are usually inherited, granted or freely chosen rather than designed, varied in small codified ways for branch families, and placed in fixed positions on formal kimono, shop curtains, lacquer and banners. Covers the formal crest (jōmon), not the decorative coloured kaga-mon or pictorial date-mon and share-mon. 1700–present · Southeast Asia Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams Thai protective diagrams in which Pali formulae, written in Khom, a sacred script derived from Khmer, are packed into squares, circles, triangles, spires and the outlines of Buddhas, monks and tigers, often framed by lines of script. Built from formulae attested in Khom inscriptions since the 15th century and drawn in manuals that survive from the late Ayutthaya period, they are printed in one ink on cheap cloth as pha yant and hung over doors, and tattooed by monks and ajarn as sak yant, such as the nine-spired Gao Yord of Wat Bang Phra.