Stylogeny combining Risograph × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

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Style combination · Pairs well

Risograph × Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Riso's few flat inks and loose registration reproduce the stencil drift of an old tarot; print a black woodcut-style key with red, yellow and pale blue for a contemporary deck or poster.

From the research on Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Mix them and make something Risograph Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

HELLORisograph × Tarot de2008 · 1639
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards, their arrangement from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards, the finish from Risograph. 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.

Risograph & Indie Print Culture Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Type from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards
Colour from Risograph
Form from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards
Composition from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards
Surface from Risograph

02

The type

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

Display · Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

Hello

Cinzel, standing in for Roman capitals cut into the woodblock with the picture, in a band at the foot of each trump and court card, often with interpuncts and the copyists' spellings ('LE CHARIOR' and 'LA PANCES' on Dodal's cards, 'LE BATELEVR' with V for U)

Text · Risograph

A contemporary culture of zines, art books, posters and prints made on Japanese Risograph stencil duplicators, whose soy-based spot inks (fluorescent pink, yellow, blue, teal) are laid down one drum at a time. Designers embrace the machine's limits: translucent overprints, slight misregistration, grainy coverage and coarse halftones give flat illustration and type a warm, handmade vibrancy at low cost.

Inter; Risograph used Neo-grotesques set large and Monospace and typewriter faces

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Risograph, with a counter-accent from Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Risograph & Indie Print Culture Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

  • #f4f1ea ground · 36%
  • #3255a4 ink · 14%
  • #ff48b0 accent · 18%
  • #e6c13f accent · 14%
  • #f15060 accent · 10%
  • #c8372d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #3255a4;
  --accent-1: #ff48b0;
  --accent-2: #e6c13f;
  --accent-3: #f15060;
  --accent-4: #c8372d;
  --font-display: "Cinzel", serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards: Trace decks cut before 1800 (Noblet, Dodal and Conver in the BnF; Dodal cards and early 19th-century Conver printings at the Met) rather than recent redrawings such as Grimaud's 1930 'Ancien Tarot de Marseille' or the 1998 Camoin–Jodorowsky restoration, which are modern works; and do not present the occultists' story of an Egyptian origin, launched by Court de Gébelin in 1781, as history: the pattern descends from Milanese tarot and was made for the card game of tarot, which French and Swiss players used it for until the early 20th century.

04

The two styles

Large pink lettering reading “PLANT CLUB” sits above a blue cat looking upward among potted houseplants and trailing vines. Bright yellow and pink offset shapes and grainy ink textures cover the cream background. 2008–present · Global / networked Risograph & Indie Print Culture A contemporary culture of zines, art books, posters and prints made on Japanese Risograph stencil duplicators, whose soy-based spot inks (fluorescent pink, yellow, blue, teal) are laid down one drum at a time. Designers embrace the machine's limits: translucent overprints, slight misregistration, grainy coverage and coarse halftones give flat illustration and type a warm, handmade vibrancy at low cost. A crowned, robed figure holds a star-topped staff and rests one hand on a blue orb bearing a yellow star. Flowers flank the figure within a distressed black border, with “GUIDANCE” printed below. 1639–present · Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards The standard pattern of French tarot cards, descended from Milanese tarot and recut by card-makers in Paris, Lyon, Avignon, Dijon and Marseille from the 17th century. Each of the 78 cards holds one emblematic subject, a stiff figure or small frozen group, or a set of suit signs, inside a ruled frame, cut in wood with thick contours and sparse hatching and stencil-coloured in a few flat colours, chiefly red, yellow, blue, green and flesh (with violet in the 17th century); trumps add a roman numeral above and a carved title below. Occultists read it as a book of symbols from 1781.

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More combinations

With Risograph

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With Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards

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