Style combination · Contrasts

Northwest Coast Formline Design × Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Both translate carved crest and totemic art into prints, but formline builds beings from swelling ovoids and U-forms in flat red and black, while Torres Strait linocut builds them from fields of fine hatching; study the difference and never blend two nations' visual languages.

From the research on Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Mix them and make something Northwest Coast Formline Design Torres Strait Islander Linocut

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Northwest Coast Formline Design, their arrangement from Northwest Coast Formline Design, the finish from Torres Strait Islander Linocut. 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.

Northwest Coast Formline Design Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Type from Torres Strait Islander Linocut
Colour from Northwest Coast Formline Design: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Northwest Coast Formline Design: Stylised figuration
Folk & sacred symbols
Composition from Northwest Coast Formline Design: Central symmetry
Horror vacui
Surface from Torres Strait Islander Linocut: Carved line

The type

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

Display · Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Halo

Caveat, standing in for Printmaker's pencilled margin under the image: title, often in Kala Lagaw Ya (David Bosun, Lagau mabaigau malu aidal, 2002), edition number, signature and date; on Alick Tipoti's Zugubal (2006) 'A Tipoti 06 ©' is pencilled lower left, the title 'Zugubal' lower centre and the edition 9/35 lower right

Text · Northwest Coast Formline Design

The two-dimensional design system of the northern Northwest Coast nations, painted, carved and woven onto boxes, house fronts, robes and hats, and printed as serigraphs since the 1960s. A continuous black primary formline that swells and tapers joins ovoids, U-forms and S-forms into hereditary crest beings, with red secondary lines and blue-green tertiary areas. The figure is split, splayed and compressed until it fills its field.

Archivo; Northwest Coast Formline Design used Hand-lettered captions and titling in Yahgulanaas's Haida Manga and Latin faces with full Lingít and X̱aad Kíl orthographic support (x̱, g̱, ḵ), e.g. Noto Sans, for accompanying text

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Northwest Coast Formline Design, with a counter-accent from Torres Strait Islander Linocut. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Northwest Coast Formline Design Torres Strait Islander Linocut

#efe9dd ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#a8261d accent · 18%
#b98a5e accent · 14%
#1d4e7a accent · 10%
#3b7a74 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe9dd;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #a8261d;
  --accent-2: #b98a5e;
  --accent-3: #1d4e7a;
  --accent-4: #3b7a74;
  --font-display: "Caveat", cursive;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Northwest Coast Formline Design: Formline images are hereditary crests: the raven, eagle, killer whale, bear, beaver and other beings belong to particular clans, houses and lineages, their display is tied to rights validated at potlatches and feasts, and some designs and stories are restricted. The tradition belongs to the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian and Heiltsuk nations, not to a generic 'Pacific Northwest' style. Commission or license work from artists of those nations, credit them by name and nation, and never redraw crests or assemble pseudo-formline from ovoids and U-forms.

Torres Strait Islander Linocut: These prints are the work of named Torres Strait Islander artists, most of them living and in copyright, and their stories, totems, constellations and minaral patterns belong to particular families, clans and islands of Zenadth Kes; Mariw Minaral, the title of Alick Tipoti's 2020–2023 exhibition, means spiritual patterns, and the hidden images within his patterns are secrets that protect sacred cultural information. Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct people from Aboriginal Australians: even the V&A files Nona's print under 'Australian Aboriginal' style, so do not label the work Aboriginal, 'tribal' or generically Pacific, or blend it with dot painting or other Oceanian traditions. Commission or license work from Islander artists and their art centres, such as Moa Arts (Ngalmun Lagau Minaral) on Mua, and follow Creative Australia's Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts. Borrow only the general method of a densely carved black relief, never a particular print, an artist's figures, a legend or a constellation story; never invent Zenadth Kes legends, masks, headdresses or minaral as decoration, never add an artist's signature, and never present a generated image as a Torres Strait Islander print.

The two styles

1700–present · North America Northwest Coast Formline Design The two-dimensional design system of the northern Northwest Coast nations, painted, carved and woven onto boxes, house fronts, robes and hats, and printed as serigraphs since the 1960s. A continuous black primary formline that swells and tapers joins ovoids, U-forms and S-forms into hereditary crest beings, with red secondary lines and blue-green tertiary areas. The figure is split, splayed and compressed until it fills its field.

A black-and-cream woodcut-style poster reads “SALT PATHS” above four people paddling a long decorated canoe. Patterned waves surround seabirds, stars, a sun-like disk, a sea turtle, fish, a ray, and shells.

1991–present · Oceania Torres Strait Islander Linocut Relief prints by Torres Strait Islander artists of Zenadth Kes, which grew from an Indigenous visual art course at Cairns College of TAFE by 1991 and the Mualgau Minaral collective on Mua (Moa) Island. Dennis Nona, Billy Missi, Alick Tipoti, Brian Robinson and others carry island carving into lino: ancestral heroes, canoes, sharks, dugong and stars interlock across a surface packed with minaral, fine incised hatching and zigzags, cut as a black key block, often with added colour, some prints over two metres long, and Robinson also sets superheroes and pop-culture icons among the minaral.