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Tone & intent · Reason

Authoritative & institutional

Confident, official, trustworthy.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under tone & intent: what should the work make people feel or do?

styles make it: 107
as a defining choice: 28
as a usual one: 47
now and then: 32
avoid it: 44

Styles defined by it 28

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic & Register Compositionc. 0–394 · Middle East & North AfricaThe visual system of pharaonic Egypt, in which writing is made of pictures and pictures are ruled like writing.
Andean Woven Graphic Systemsc. 600–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe graphic systems of Andean cloth, the region's most prestigious medium, in which every motif is built on the warp-and-weft grid.
Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)c. 960–present · East AsiaThe page and letter of the East Asian book.
Kamon (Japanese Family Crests)c. 1100–present · East AsiaJapan's family crests: small one-colour emblems that reduce a plant, animal, tool or pattern to a flat silhouette, mirrored or repeated around a centre, often ringed and drawn with compass and brush.
European Heraldryc. 1140–present · Western Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern EuropeThe hereditary identifying devices of medieval Europe's knights and seals, codified into a rule-bound grammar still used by states, cities, churches, universities and families.
Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Traditionc. 1180–present · Central Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, North America, Global / networkedThe broken scripts of the Latin West.
Mixteca-Puebla Codex Paintingc. 1200–1560 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe painted screenfold books of Postclassic southern and central Mexico (not the Maya codices): long strips of gesso-coated deerskin, folded like a screen and painted on both sides.
Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornamentc. 1204–present · East AsiaMongolia's classical script and the auspicious ornament that frames it on state, Buddhist and household objects.
Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery Calligraphyc. 1324–present · Middle East & North Africa, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, South AsiaThe Ottoman sultan's calligraphic monogram and the chancery hand written beneath it.
Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books)1752–1885 · Southeast AsiaPainted Burmese folding books of the Konbaung court and its monasteries.
Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing1822–1956 · Middle East & North AfricaThe page of the Arabic printed book as Egypt's state press at Bulaq shaped it from 1822: justified blocks of black Naskh type on pale paper, often boxed in a ruled frame, with an ornamental headpiece on the opening page, headings set larger or in a second script such as Nastaʿlīq, and almost no pictures.
Italian Fascist Graphics (Romanità & Exhibition Photomontage)1921–1943 · Southern EuropeThe visual language of Italian Fascism, which turned modernist means to a cult of Rome and of the Duce.
Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster1932–1989 · Eastern Europe, Central Europe, East Asia, Southeast AsiaThe official art doctrine of the Soviet Union from 1932, later exported across the socialist world, which replaced avant-garde experiment with legible, heroic realism 'national in form, socialist in content'.
Estado Novo Folk Modernism (SPN)1933–1949 · Southern EuropeThe official image of Salazar's Estado Novo, shaped by António Ferro's Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (SPN, 1933; SNI from 1944).
Nippon Kōbō & Tōhōsha Photo-Propaganda Magazines (NIPPON & FRONT)1933–1945 · East AsiaLuxury photo-propaganda magazines that imperial Japan sent abroad, 1934–45.
Hebrew Poster Lettering & Early Israeli State Design1934–1974 · Middle East & North AfricaThe commercial and state graphics of the Jewish community in Mandate Palestine and early Israel, made in Tel Aviv from 1934 by designers who had trained in Berlin and Vienna: Franz Krausz, Otte Wallish and the Shamir brothers.
Corporate Identity Modernism1955–1990 · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedModernist reduction applied to corporate communication.
British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert)1958–present · Western EuropeThe national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965.
Indian Institutional Modernism (NID)1961–1990 · South AsiaThe design culture of independent India's public institutions, banks and broadcasters.
Amar Chitra Katha Comics1967–present · South AsiaThe Bombay comic-book series that from 1967 retold Hindu myth and epic, Buddhist and Jain tales, saints, folk legends, the jests of the court wits Birbal and Tenali Raman, and Indian history for children, in English and Indian languages, with well over 500 titles by the early 1990s.
Ethiopian Revolutionary Poster (Derg Era)1974–1991 · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe poster and mural art of the Derg military government and its successor, Mengistu's People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1974–1991), made mostly by teachers and students of the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts.
NSK Retro-Avant-Garde1980–present · Central Europe, Southern EuropeThe retro-avant-garde of Neue Slowenische Kunst, founded in Ljubljana in 1984 by Laibach, IRWIN and the Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, with Novi kolektivizem as its design department.
Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)1985–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networkedOne fixed page for the Qur'an across much of the Muslim world: Uthman Taha's fully vowelled Naskh in fifteen justified lines, written so that every page ends at the end of a verse (the late Ottoman âyet-berkenar layout), inside a floral frame, with sura titles in framed cartouches and verse numbers in small round medallions.
Nigerian Pentecostal Crusade Poster & Billboard1990–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe roadside adverts of Nigeria's Pentecostal and independent churches: billboards, banners and posters on poles, walls and bridges announcing crusades, revivals, conventions and night vigils.
GOV.UK Design (GDS Style)2012–present · Western EuropeThe text-led design of GOV.UK, the UK government's single website, built by the Government Digital Service from 2012 and codified in the GOV.UK Design System (2018).
Plain Tobacco Packaging2012–present · Oceania, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Global / networkedA packaging language written into law to strip tobacco of persuasion.
Analog Horror Graphics2015–present · North America, Global / networkedA horror genre, mostly on YouTube, that tells its stories through imitation television and home-video graphics rather than actors: emergency-alert screens, station IDs, public-service, educational and instructional tapes, set between the 1960s and early 2000s.
Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals)2016–present · Latin America & CaribbeanA state warning system stacked on commercial food packs.

Styles that often use it 47

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 32

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Borders & framesin 65 of 107
Emblems & badgesin 67 of 107
Central symmetryin 83 of 107
Spiritual & sacredin 56 of 107
Layered informationin 55 of 107
Framed panelsin 71 of 107

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent