Style combination · Contrasts

Republican Chinese Book Cover Design × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

The ruled woodblock page and Songti type that the new covers left behind; set a Song-type text block against a drawn, off-centre cover title to show old book and new.

From the research on Republican Chinese Book Cover Design (Lu Xun & Tao Yuanqing)

Mix them and make something Republican Chinese Book Cover Design Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, their arrangement from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, the finish from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. 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.

Republican Chinese Book Cover Design (Lu Xun & Tao Yuanqing) Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Type from Republican Chinese Book Cover Design: Hand-lettering
Brush & pen calligraphy
Colour from Republican Chinese Book Cover Design: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Rectilinear
Rules & bars
Composition from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Modular grid
Column grid
Surface from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

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

Display · Republican Chinese Book Cover Design

Calm

Shippori Mincho, standing in for Songti (Song/Ming) lead type for author, publisher and running text, and for plain printed covers such as Huagai ji

Text · Republican Chinese Book Cover Design

The covers of China's New Literature. From 1923 the writer Lu Xun took up cover design in earnest, and from 1924 he commissioned the painter Tao Yuanqing; he called covers with titles inscribed by famous people or set in lead type 'old hat' (老套). A hand-drawn title, two or three flat colours and one symbolic motif sit on a wide, plain field with generous margins. The motif is often taken from Han and Six Dynasties stone carvings, cut into angular silhouettes or, more rarely, painted in free brush. Qian Juntao and Feng Zikai carried the manner on at Shanghai's Kaiming Bookstore.

Shippori Mincho; Republican Chinese Book Cover Design used Lu Xun's hand-drawn and brush-written title characters and Meishuzi (美术字, 'art lettering')

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Republican Chinese Book Cover Design, with a counter-accent from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Republican Chinese Book Cover Design (Lu Xun & Tao Yuanqing) Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

#efe8d8 ground · 36%
#1e1b16 ink · 14%
#e39a2d accent · 18%
#b5342b accent · 14%
#d6c49c accent · 10%
#2e3d5c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe8d8;
  --ink: #1e1b16;
  --accent-1: #e39a2d;
  --accent-2: #b5342b;
  --accent-3: #d6c49c;
  --accent-4: #2e3d5c;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Republican Chinese Book Cover Design (Lu Xun & Tao Yuanqing): Hand-drawn titles must be real, correctly formed Chinese characters checked by a fluent reader: pseudo-characters, mirrored strokes or random hanzi used as texture read as nonsense, a common failure of image models imitating this style. Tao Yuanqing's and Lu Xun's designs are in the public domain, but Qian Juntao's (he died in 1998) and Feng Zikai's (he died in 1975, so still protected in life-plus-70 countries) are not; draw new motifs, and do not copy an artist's personal seal or monogram as decoration.

Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho): Have any Chinese, Japanese or Korean text set and proofread by a fluent reader: Song, Mincho and Myeongjo fonts draw some characters differently for each locale, and pseudo-characters, mirrored glyphs or random hanzi used as texture read as nonsense or worse. Pages of Buddhist sutras and other scripture carry devotional text; do not crop them into decoration.