Style combination · Contrasts
Die Neue Typographie × Renaissance Book Typography
Tschichold himself returned to the centred classical page; set the two side by side to choose between symmetric tradition and asymmetric function.
Mix them and make something Die Neue Typographie Renaissance Book Typography
01
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.
Die Neue Typographie Renaissance Book Typography
- Type from Renaissance Book Typography
- Colour from Die Neue Typographie
- Form from Die Neue Typographie
- Composition from Die Neue Typographie
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Renaissance Book Typography avoids dynamic asymmetry: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Surface from Renaissance Book Typography
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Renaissance Book Typography
Grid
EB Garamond; Renaissance Book Typography used Jenson's roman and Griffo's roman
Text · Die Neue Typographie
The programme that turned avant-garde experiment into a functional typographic method, named by Moholy-Nagy in 1923 and codified in Jan Tschichold's 'elementare typographie' (1925) and Die neue Typographie (1928). It demanded asymmetric layouts, sans-serif type, standard paper formats, photography and active white space, all justified by clarity of communication, and spread through the Ring neue Werbegestalter and designers from Delft to Prague.
Jost; Die Neue Typographie used Futura and Akzidenz-Grotesk
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Die Neue Typographie, with a counter-accent from Renaissance Book Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Die Neue Typographie Renaissance Book Typography
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#f3efe4ground · 39% -
#141414ink · 15% -
#d32a1faccent · 20% -
#7d7a73accent · 15% -
#b8973faccent · 11%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f3efe4;
--ink: #141414;
--accent-1: #d32a1f;
--accent-2: #7d7a73;
--accent-3: #b8973f;
--font-display: "EB Garamond", serif;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Die Neue Typographie
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Two-colour riso printing suits its black-plus-red restraint for low-budget editorial and posters.
- Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Contrasts · Cranbrook dismantled exactly these rules; state one New Typography convention clearly, then break it on purpose.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Extend its asymmetric black-and-red onto a full modular grid for a seamless Swiss-era update.
- Mechano-Faktura & Polish Constructivist Advertising Pairs well · Pair the line-field image with asymmetric sans setting for an advertising layout.
- Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD) Pairs well · Saville's model: borrow Tschichold's asymmetric placement and small sans-serif capitals, then replace his photographs with one quoted image to get a cool, ordered sleeve.
- Brodovitch Editorial Design (Harper's Bazaar) Contrasts · Asymmetry without rules: improvised and photographic rather than systematic.
- German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung) Contrasts · From the mid-1920s the Bauhaus and the New Typography took over the avant-garde of the book; centred hand-press pages against asymmetric sans-serif layouts make a clear old-against-new tension.
- ECM Sleeve Aesthetic (Munich) Pairs well · Barbara Wojirsch named Tschichold as an influence: borrow his asymmetric blocks of small sans-serif type and set them beside one quiet photograph instead of his photomontage.
With Renaissance Book Typography
- Minimalist Graphic Design Pairs well · Keep classical page proportions and a humanist serif but strip the ornament to give minimal layouts warmth and authority.
- Arts & Crafts Movement Pairs well · Morris's Kelmscott Press revived Jenson's roman; pair a Renaissance text block with dense Arts & Crafts borders for a private-press feel.
- Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Tradition Contrasts · The humanist roman was drawn against the gothic textura it replaced in Italy: open, round and light where blackletter is dense, broken and dark.
- Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition Pairs well · Use arabesque or moresque fleurons, as Venetian and Lyon printers did, to frame a classical text block.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Centred, justified and serifed versus asymmetric, ragged and sans: the clearest foil for deciding which order a page should follow.
- Ethiopian Ge'ez Manuscript & Haräg Illumination Pairs well · Ge'ez manuscripts share the logic of black text with red rubrics; borrow the principle of red for names and headings, not the sacred imagery.
- Gothic Book of Hours (Illuminated Devotional Book) Contrasts · Compare a hand-painted devotional opening with a printed humanist text page: the former gives pictures and illuminated margins a larger organising role, while the latter centres roman type and measured margins.
- Emblem Book (Motto, Picture & Epigram) Contrasts · Its parent shares the humanist roman and italic, the paper and the woodcut, but lets text carry the page with ornament at its edges; the emblem book puts a framed picture at the centre of every page and makes it part of the argument.