Stylogeny combining Rinpa × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

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Style combination · Contrasts

Rinpa × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

The Ming/Mincho book letter is upright, separate and set square in a ruled grid; Saga-bon type is flowing kana linked across sorts on decorated paper. Use Mincho for running text and a Saga-bon-like hand for titles and poems.

From the research on Rinpa & Saga-bon

Mix them and make something Rinpa Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

TideRinpa × Song–Ming Woodblock1600 · 960
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Rinpa, their arrangement from Rinpa, the finish from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. 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.

Rinpa & Saga-bon Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Type from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography
Colour from Rinpa
Form from Rinpa
Composition from Rinpa
Surface from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

02

The type

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

Display · Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

Tide

Shippori Mincho, standing in for Song block-cut regular script after Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan

Text · Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

The page and letter of the East Asian book. Song block cutters copied the regular script of Tang masters; from the mid-16th century Ming cutters straightened it into a knife-made letter of thin horizontals, thick verticals and triangular stroke ends. Equal square characters run in right-to-left vertical columns in a ruled frame folded at a central column. As metal type in Shanghai and Nagasaki it became Mincho, Myeongjo and the standard CJK text face. Frame, rules and fold column belong to the woodblock page; type keeps the letter, the square and, in Japan and Taiwan, the vertical column.

Shippori Mincho; Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography used Song block-cut regular script after Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan and Ming-style Songti / Mingti, the straightened 'craftsman's' letter, mature by the Wanli era

03

The colours

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

Rinpa & Saga-bon Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

  • #c9a447 ground · 36%
  • #1c1a17 ink · 14%
  • #b0412e accent · 18%
  • #1f3f7a accent · 14%
  • #d6c49c accent · 10%
  • #3e7a5c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #c9a447;
  --ink: #1c1a17;
  --accent-1: #b0412e;
  --accent-2: #1f3f7a;
  --accent-3: #d6c49c;
  --accent-4: #3e7a5c;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Rinpa & Saga-bon: Poems on Rinpa works and Saga-bon pages are real Japanese texts: have any kana or kanji written or set and checked by a fluent reader, and never fill a design with pseudo-calligraphy as texture. Do not present a generated gold screen as a historical work or as a copy of a named National Treasure. A Kōrin-style plum or wave can be crest-like, but keep it free of any real family's, shrine's or temple's mon.

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.

04

The two styles

A white crane with black wing feathers and a red crown flies across a textured gold background beside the black calligraphy 花宴. Large red flowers and green leaves frame winding blue bands decorated with repeating gold wave patterns. 1600–present · East Asia Rinpa & Saga-bon A Kyoto school of decorative design that revived the poetry and court painting of the Heian period, begun around 1600 by the calligrapher Hon'ami Kōetsu and the painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu and carried on less by teaching than by admiration across generations: Ogata Kōrin, Sakai Hōitsu, Kamisaka Sekka. A few plants, waves or birds are enlarged, simplified, cropped and repeated across open gold or silver grounds, colour is pooled wet into wet (tarashikomi), poems are brushed over decorated paper, and the same motifs pass to screens, fans, lacquer, kimono and the movable-type Saga-bon books. A vintage-style bookstore poster has large black Japanese characters stacked vertically in a central panel, with smaller vertical lettering along both sides. Black ruled borders, red four-petal motifs, diamonds and dots decorate a textured cream background. c. 960–present · East Asia Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho) The page and letter of the East Asian book. Song block cutters copied the regular script of Tang masters; from the mid-16th century Ming cutters straightened it into a knife-made letter of thin horizontals, thick verticals and triangular stroke ends. Equal square characters run in right-to-left vertical columns in a ruled frame folded at a central column. As metal type in Shanghai and Nagasaki it became Mincho, Myeongjo and the standard CJK text face. Frame, rules and fold column belong to the woodblock page; type keeps the letter, the square and, in Japan and Taiwan, the vertical column.

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More combinations

With Rinpa

All 11 combinations with Rinpa

With Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

All 18 combinations with Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

Every style combination