Style combination · Pairs well

Iranian Modernist Graphic Design × Square Kufic

Persian Wikipedia records bannāʾī in modern posters, logos and letterheads, and the atlas's Iranian modernist entry counts it among its Persian scripts; pair a square-Kufic title block with a Nastaʿlīq line and one flat figure for a Persian cultural poster.

From the research on Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

Mix them and make something Iranian Modernist Graphic Design Square Kufic

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Square Kufic, their arrangement from Square Kufic, the finish from Iranian Modernist 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.

Iranian Modernist Graphic Design Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

Type from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering
Colour from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design: Limited spot colours
Earth & mineral
Form from Square Kufic: Rectilinear
Geometric primitives
Composition from Square Kufic: Modular grid
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design: Flat

The type

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

Display · Iranian Modernist Graphic Design

Calm

Rakkas, standing in for Nastaʿlīq

Text · Square Kufic

Square Kufic builds Arabic script on a square grid: straight lines and right angles only, with every stroke as wide as the gap beside it. A word can then fill a square, a band or a whole wall without gaps. It grew from twelfth- and thirteenth-century brick and tile inscriptions, probably first in Iran and Afghanistan, where one brick or glazed tile made one unit, and spread to Central Asia, Anatolia and the Maghreb. The names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli repeat across minarets and façades. In modern times it was revived for logos, the flag of Iran and calligraphy.

Reem Kufi; Square Kufic used Bannāʾī (maʿqilī) and Square Kufic drawn in ink on a squared (chequered) grid, as in the pattern drawings of the Topkapı Scroll and in modern calligraphy, usually without dots

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Iranian Modernist Graphic Design, with a counter-accent from Square Kufic. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Iranian Modernist Graphic Design Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

#efe6d2 ground · 36%
#1a1a1a ink · 14%
#c49a3a accent · 18%
#2a9ea6 accent · 14%
#b0322a accent · 10%
#1e3d8f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe6d2;
  --ink: #1a1a1a;
  --accent-1: #c49a3a;
  --accent-2: #2a9ea6;
  --accent-3: #b0322a;
  --accent-4: #1e3d8f;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Reem Kufi", cursive;
}

Use it with care

Square Kufic (Bannāʾī): Square-Kufic panels almost always spell sacred words: the names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli, the shahada, the takbir or Qur'anic phrases. Never crop, mirror or scramble them, never fill a surface with invented pseudo-Kufic as a pixel texture, and keep such text off floors, footwear, packaging and other throwaway surfaces. Some formulas belong to one community, such as the Shiʿi addition 'ʿAli is the friend of God', so have every composition read and approved by a fluent reader or a square-Kufic calligrapher, and commission or credit living calligraphers rather than tracing panels from buildings. The square-Kufic takbir band belongs to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran (since July 1980), and many Iranian opposition groups and diaspora communities fly the Lion and Sun flag or a plain tricolour instead, so do not quote the band as decorative Persian shorthand. Do not treat the names Muhammad and ʿAli together as neutral filler either: they interlock on the minarets of the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, and they also appear in the blue brickwork of the Timurid shrine of the Sunni Sufi Khoja Ahmed Yasavi, so check how the community commissioning the work reads them.

The two styles

Large black Persian calligraphy fills a cream, lightly textured poster, with a golden three-leaf sprout rising in front of a red sun. A blue, rippling reflection tapers downward beneath the lettering.

1960–present · Middle East & North Africa Iranian Modernist Graphic Design Iranian graphic design came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Morteza Momayez, Farshid Mesghali, Ghobad Shiva and Guity Novin worked for magazines, the Kanoon children's institute and film and arts festivals, and built a modern visual language from Persian calligraphy, miniature and folk imagery and the conceptual poster of the Polish school. From the 1990s Reza Abedini's generation made Persian letterforms themselves into dense, architectural poster compositions. c. 1100–present · Middle East & North Africa, South Asia Square Kufic (Bannāʾī) Square Kufic builds Arabic script on a square grid: straight lines and right angles only, with every stroke as wide as the gap beside it. A word can then fill a square, a band or a whole wall without gaps. It grew from twelfth- and thirteenth-century brick and tile inscriptions, probably first in Iran and Afghanistan, where one brick or glazed tile made one unit, and spread to Central Asia, Anatolia and the Maghreb. The names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli repeat across minarets and façades. In modern times it was revived for logos, the flag of Iran and calligraphy.