Stylogeny combining Nieuwe Kunst × Wendingen

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Style combination · Pairs well

Nieuwe Kunst × Wendingen

Its Amsterdam successor kept the symmetry, the closed frame and the systematic construction (Lauweriks drew Wendingen's first cover) but traded plants and batik for heavy capitals built from brass rules; combine them for a vegetal pattern inside a monumental frame.

From the research on Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau)

Mix them and make something Nieuwe Kunst Wendingen

TOMORROWNieuwe Kunst × Wendingen1892 · 1918
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Nieuwe Kunst, their arrangement from Nieuwe Kunst, the finish from Wendingen. 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.

Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau) Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography

Type from Wendingen
Colour from Nieuwe Kunst
Form from Nieuwe Kunst
Composition from Nieuwe Kunst
Surface from Wendingen

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The type

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

Display · Wendingen

Tomorrow

Rubik Mono One; Wendingen used H. Th. Wijdeveld's capitals and meanders assembled from compositors' brass rules and type-case pieces and Architectuur NF (Nick Curtis, Nick's Fonts, 2006), a digital revival of the rule-built letters of Wijdeveld's 1925 Frank Lloyd Wright issue, with his meander ornaments

Text · Nieuwe Kunst

The Dutch branch of Art Nouveau, seen mostly in book covers, vignettes and posters. Where Brussels and Paris let the line whip and swell, Dutch designers, from 1895 more and more on grids of triangles, built stylised plants and animals into flat, symmetrical repeats. They took Arts and Crafts ideals from England, and from the Dutch East Indies colony they took batik, which they used for covers in cotton, velvet and parchment. Jan Toorop's poster for Delftsche Slaolie (1894) gave the style its mocking nickname, the 'salad-oil style'.

EB Garamond; Nieuwe Kunst used Hand-drawn titles lettered into the decoration of covers and posters, such as Theo Nieuwenhuis's lettering, recognisable enough that Leiden University Libraries attribute a 1908 parchment binding to him on the strength of its typography and Klaas van Leeuwen, Letterboek voor den teekenaar en ambachtsman (1907), a lettering model book, geometric in concept, from the theosophical circle of De Bazel and Lauweriks

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Nieuwe Kunst, with a counter-accent from Wendingen. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau) Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography

  • #ede2c6 ground · 36%
  • #23365a ink · 14%
  • #c49a3a accent · 18%
  • #c4561e accent · 14%
  • #6e4426 accent · 10%
  • #6b7340 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ede2c6;
  --ink: #23365a;
  --accent-1: #c49a3a;
  --accent-2: #c4561e;
  --accent-3: #6e4426;
  --accent-4: #6b7340;
  --font-display: "Rubik Mono One", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", serif;
}

Use it with care

Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau): Nieuwe Kunst took batik and the look of wayang shadow puppets from Java under Dutch colonial rule, largely without naming Javanese makers; when you borrow its batik surfaces or puppet-like figures, credit batik as an Indonesian craft (UNESCO-listed since 2009) whose motifs can carry meaning, and do not present printed batik-look as wax-resist work.

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The two styles

Two mirrored, long-legged blue birds stand among curling green foliage and burgundy and ochre flowers on a cream background. A large brown heading reading “BLOEITIJD” sits near the top, with repeating floral borders down both sides. 1892–1914 · Western Europe Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau) The Dutch branch of Art Nouveau, seen mostly in book covers, vignettes and posters. Where Brussels and Paris let the line whip and swell, Dutch designers, from 1895 more and more on grids of triangles, built stylised plants and animals into flat, symmetrical repeats. They took Arts and Crafts ideals from England, and from the Dutch East Indies colony they took batik, which they used for covers in cotton, velvet and parchment. Jan Toorop's poster for Delftsche Slaolie (1894) gave the style its mocking nickname, the 'salad-oil style'. A symmetrical geometric poster in rust orange, ochre, black and cream features a rising semicircular sun with angular rays above the large word “HORIZON.” Stepped shapes, vertical bars and small squares fill an elaborate border on a grainy, aged-paper background. 1918–1932 · Western Europe Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography The graphic language of Wendingen (1918–1932), monthly of the Amsterdam architects' society Architectura et Amicitia, and its editor H. Th. Wijdeveld: the Amsterdam School's brick Expressionism in print. Wijdeveld built heavy capitals and meanders from compositors' brass rules and centred them in thick rule frames on square, Japanese-sewn pages; invited artists drew the covers. The School also built such capitals in brick and on bridge nameplates. Avant-garde covers, such as El Lissitzky's Proun (1921 no. 11, out 1922) and Vilmos Huszár's De Stijl design (1929), sit outside the house style.

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More combinations

With Nieuwe Kunst

With Wendingen

Every style combination