Style combination · Contrasts

Mongol Bichig Calligraphy × Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design

Both make the state's alphabet part of its official graphics, by opposite moves: Turkish Republican posters hand-letter the new Latin alphabet at display size to promote it, while Mongolia sets its revived old script beside Cyrillic on seals, signboards and letterheads as a national mark.

From the research on Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornament

Mix them and make something Mongol Bichig Calligraphy Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Mongol Bichig Calligraphy, their arrangement from Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design, the finish from Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design. 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.

Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornament Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design

Type from Mongol Bichig Calligraphy: Brush & pen calligraphy
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from Mongol Bichig Calligraphy: Flat fields
Primary triad
Form from Mongol Bichig Calligraphy: Folk & sacred symbols
Emblems & badges
Composition from Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design: Single focal point
Isolated object
Surface from Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design: Painterly brushwork

The type

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

Display · Mongol Bichig Calligraphy

Notice

Kaushan Script; Mongol Bichig Calligraphy used Classical Mongolian (Uyghur-Mongolian) script, ninety letter forms joined vertically by continuous strokes, written with a reed pen until the 18th century and with the brush after it and 'Folded' condensed forms of the script, drawn to fill emblems, logos, coins and stamps, as in the 'Mongol Uls' of the State Seal

Text · Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design

The pictorial poster, label and ticket art of the young Turkish Republic, led by İhap Hulusi Görey after his Munich training in Ludwig Hohlwein's orbit, with Münif Fehim Özarman and, after 1943, Kenan Temizan. Lithographed figures modelled in crisp patches of light and shadow, sometimes in only one or two inks, giant numerals and letters, framed emblems and bold hand-drawn lettering in the Latin script adopted in 1928 advertised banks, the State Lottery, the state monopolies and tourism, and promoted the state's new alphabet.

Oswald; Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design used Hand-drawn Latin display capitals with Turkish diacritics (Ç, Ğ, İ, Ö, Ş, Ü) for brand and institution names and Shaded and extruded display letters and giant numerals

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Mongol Bichig Calligraphy, with a counter-accent from Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornament Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design

#f4efe3 ground · 36%
#16130f ink · 14%
#e0a526 accent · 18%
#cf1f2e accent · 14%
#1d4f91 accent · 10%
#3f7a4a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4efe3;
  --ink: #16130f;
  --accent-1: #e0a526;
  --accent-2: #cf1f2e;
  --accent-3: #1d4f91;
  --accent-4: #3f7a4a;
  --font-display: "Kaushan Script", cursive;
  --font-text: "Oswald", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornament: Mongol bichig is the living script of Mongols in Mongolia and in Inner Mongolia, where in 2020 China moved three school subjects in Mongolian-medium schools into Mandarin, met by protests and school boycotts; UNESCO lists Mongolian calligraphy as heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, and at inscription in 2013 only three scholars were training just over twenty young calligraphers. Have every word written or checked by a fluent reader or calligrapher: letters change shape by position, so pseudo-script, mirrored text, text rotated the wrong way and letters broken up as texture read as nonsense. The Soyombo is a state symbol on the flag and emblem, and Mongolia regulates the use of its state symbols by law (Constitution, Article 12(7)): the Law on State Symbols (1994) forbids disparaging them and imitating the State Seal. The endless knot, wishing jewel and lotus are Buddhist auspicious signs; keep them and the state symbols out of trivial or demeaning uses. The khas (swastika) is an old Mongolian sign of good fortune but reads as the Nazi swastika to many audiences, so avoid it outside a context that explains it, and commission or credit Mongolian calligraphers and craftspeople rather than tracing their work.

Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design: Atatürk's likeness, the Turkish flag and the star and crescent are living national symbols, and Turkey's Law No. 5816 (1951) criminalises insulting Atatürk's memory, so do not caricature, distort or trivialise them when borrowing this style. Much of this imagery was produced for a one-party state and its campaigns, and Kemalist iconography (the unveiled "modern" woman, the six arrows, Atatürk portraits) is still politically charged in Turkey, read differently by secularists, religious conservatives and minorities whom the nation-building imagery left out. Do not present the regime's modernising narrative as neutral, and do not reuse party emblems as decoration.