Style combination · Contrasts

Square Kufic × Vyaz

Both turn sacred words into a dense band that reads first as pattern, but square Kufic snaps letters to an orthogonal grid of equal stroke and gap, while vyaz stretches free pen-drawn letters upward and plugs the gaps with plant filler; choose the grid or the calligraphic interlace, and never blend the two sacred scripts into a generic 'ancient' texture.

From the research on Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering)

Mix them and make something Square Kufic Vyaz

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

Square Kufic (Bannāʾī) Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering)

Type from Vyaz: Brush & pen calligraphy
Condensed display
Colour from Square Kufic: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Square Kufic: Rectilinear
Geometric primitives
Composition from Square Kufic: Modular grid
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Vyaz: Flat

The type

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

Display · Vyaz

Grace

Federant, standing in for Drawn Russian Revival vyaz of about 1900, intricate and in the spirit of Art Nouveau, such as Vrubel's monolinear vyaz

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 Square Kufic, with a counter-accent from Vyaz. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Square Kufic (Bannāʾī) Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering)

#f3eee3 ground · 36%
#161616 ink · 14%
#2a9ea6 accent · 18%
#b5341f accent · 14%
#1e3d8f accent · 10%
#c39a3e accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3eee3;
  --ink: #161616;
  --accent-1: #2a9ea6;
  --accent-2: #b5341f;
  --accent-3: #1e3d8f;
  --accent-4: #c39a3e;
  --font-display: "Federant", sans-serif;
  --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.

Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering): Most vyaz carries sacred text: prayers, holy names, the titles of Gospels and service books, and inscriptions on icons, bells, church vessels, shrouds and graves. Do not fill a band with invented pseudo-Cyrillic or scramble real Church Slavonic as texture, keep holy names and prayers off throwaway products, and have any text written or checked by a reader of Church Slavonic. For Old Believers the pre-reform book and its lettering remain a matter of faith, so credit and involve their communities rather than lifting their headings as decoration. Vyaz is not only Russian: Bulgarian and Serbian scribes used it before Russia, Romanian scribes from the 15th century, and western and south-western Rus' in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (today's Belarus and Ukraine, with Supraśl in Poland) kept its own plant-derived manner, so credit the book culture a model comes from. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, check whether your audience will read Old Russian display lettering as Russian state or nationalist branding; vyaz is also part of Belarusian and Ukrainian book and icon heritage, so ask how that audience reads it rather than assuming either.

The two styles

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.

Tall, ornate red Cyrillic lettering reading “ЗАРЯ” fills a cream panel, with blue and gold flowering vines woven between the letters. A dense floral border surrounds the lettering on all four sides.

c. 1230–present · Eastern Europe, Southern Europe Vyaz (Ornamental Slavonic Lettering) Cyrillic letters bound into one even band of ornament. Tall, narrow letters share stems, nest small letters inside tall ones, and fill gaps with twigs, curls and leaves, so the line reads first as texture. Formed in Byzantium, dated among South Slavs from 1230 and in Rus' from 1380, it peaked in mid-16th-century Moscow and Novgorod and lived on among Old Believers. It titles books in cinnabar or gold and runs on icons, bells, church plate, embroidery and gravestones. Russian-style illustrators revived it about 1900 for books, posters and menus; icon painters and calligraphers still write it.

More combinations

With Square Kufic

With Vyaz

Every style combination