Stylogeny combining Onitsha Market Pamphlets × International Typographic Style

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Style combination · Contrasts

Onitsha Market Pamphlets × International Typographic Style

Set the pamphlet's crowded captions and sermonising titles against Swiss neutrality and white space when a layout needs a deliberate clash of voices.

From the research on Onitsha Market Pamphlets

Mix them and make something Onitsha Market Pamphlets International Typographic Style

CIVICOnitsha Market × International Typographic
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from International Typographic Style, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Onitsha Market Pamphlets. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Onitsha Market Pamphlets International Typographic Style

Type from Onitsha Market Pamphlets

International Typographic Style avoids eclectic mixing: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Colour from International Typographic Style
Form from International Typographic Style
Composition from International Typographic Style
Surface from Onitsha Market Pamphlets

02

The type

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

Display · Onitsha Market Pamphlets

Civic

Inter Tight, standing in for Jobbing grotesque and gothic capitals for cover titles

Text · International Typographic Style

A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Onitsha Market Pamphlets. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Onitsha Market Pamphlets International Typographic Style

  • #f2f0e9 ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #e1251b accent · 18%
  • #1f4e9c accent · 14%
  • #e3a0a8 accent · 10%
  • #7a7a7a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-3: #e3a0a8;
  --accent-4: #7a7a7a;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

1947–1980 · Sub-Saharan Africa Onitsha Market Pamphlets Cheap, stapled pamphlets of romance, advice, drama and political biography, written by students, clerks, journalists and traders and printed by jobbing letterpress shops around Onitsha Main Market in eastern Nigeria from the late 1940s. Covers did the selling at the stall: long moralising titles in mixed jobbing type, the price and the author's pen-name, and recycled photographs on coloured card. The trade lost its presses in the Nigeria–Biafra War and revived only briefly afterwards. The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right. 1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

05

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