Style combination · Contrasts

Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism × International Typographic Style

Set a strict ornament-free information layer of grid and grotesque against one ornamental panel to keep wayfinding legible on a patterned wall.

From the research on Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism

Mix them and make something Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism. 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.

Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism International Typographic Style

Type from International Typographic Style: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Type as image
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism: Non-representational
Geometric tessellation
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry
Surface from Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism: Flat

The type

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

Display · International Typographic Style

Tomorrow

Inter Tight, standing in for Akzidenz-Grotesk

Text · Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism

The monumental art of Soviet Central Asia after the 1966 Tashkent earthquake: a strand of Socialist Realism mixed with Islamic and national ornament. Prefabricated housing blocks and public buildings in Tashkent and Almaty, and Tashkent's metro stations, got a skin of smalt and ceramic mosaic and concrete sun-screen grilles (panjara) that enlarge Central Asian and Islamic pattern to façade scale. Near-abstract geometric and floral pattern carries much of it; figurative panels add flat, stylised musicians, epic lovers, cosmonauts and scientists in turquoise, deep blue, ochre and orange.

Jost; Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism used The sources document no lettering of the style's own, so the genome's all-caps weight (0.3) is a design recommendation, not an observed choice: for graphics, keep words few and set Cyrillic, Uzbek and Kazakh names in plain capitals so that pattern and figure carry the design and Zhurnalnaya rublenaya, or Magazine Grotesque (designed 1940–56 at the Polygraphmash type bureau under Anatoliy Shchukin, released 1947, Latin added 1962), a Soviet geometric sans after Erbar-Grotesk and Metro, for Cyrillic captions and signs

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#d79a2b accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#d2602b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #d79a2b;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #d2602b;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism: This is official Soviet monumental art made in Central Asia under rule from Moscow: treat its motifs as Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tajik heritage rather than generic 'Oriental' decoration; credit named artists, among them the Jarsky brothers, Ahmet Shaymuradov and the Kazakh artist Moldakhmet Kenbaev; keep Qur'anic and other sacred Arabic inscriptions, and pseudo-Arabic letters, out of reworked tile patterns; and draw new panels instead of copying surviving mosaics. They are attributed works whose makers or heirs may still hold rights; 157 of them have been listed heritage in Uzbekistan since 25 March 2024, while Almaty has no policy to protect its monumental art, and many mosaics there have been painted over, demolished or hidden behind hoardings and advertisements.