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Space & hierarchy · Hierarchy

Extreme scale contrast

Very large against very small elements, for drama and order.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under space & hierarchy: how is attention distributed?

styles make it: 160
as a defining choice: 21
as a usual one: 96
now and then: 43
avoid it: 2

Styles defined by it 21

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.
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.
Hungarian Revolutionary Poster1912–1919 · Central EuropeThe political posters of Hungary's revolutions.
Vorticism & BLAST Typography1914–1920 · Western EuropeLondon's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915).
Russian Constructivism1917–1934 · Eastern EuropeConstructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society.
Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics1921–1927 · Latin America & CaribbeanMexico's first avant-garde (1921-27), launched when Manuel Maples Arce pasted his manifesto Actual No. 1 on Mexico City walls.
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.
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)1922–1929 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe print side of São Paulo's Modernismo (1922-29), set in jobbing print shops.
Egyptian Painted Film Poster1932–1996 · Middle East & North AfricaThe painted publicity of Egyptian cinema from the early talkies to the 1990s, designed outside the studios by artist-printers such as Hassan Mazhar Gassour and printed as colour lithographs in Cairo.
Nippon Kōbō & Tōhōsha Photo-Propaganda Magazines (NIPPON & FRONT)1933–1945 · East AsiaLuxury photo-propaganda magazines that imperial Japan sent abroad, 1934–45.
Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster1940–1999 · South AsiaThe painted publicity of Bombay's Hindi film industry, at its height from the 1940s to the 1980s.
Blue Note Jazz Sleeve Modernism1956–1967 · North AmericaThe record-sleeve language of Blue Note Records, set by art director Reid Miles, who designed some 350 twelve-inch LP covers between about 1956 and 1967, often around Francis Wolff's session photographs.
Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella)1960–1970 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe in-house graphics of Buenos Aires' Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1960–1970, led by Juan Carlos Distéfano with Juan Andralis, Rubén Fontana, Norberto Coppola and Carlos Soler.
Phototype Expressive Typography (Lubalin & U&lc)1962–1985 · North AmericaThe display typography of the phototype era, led in New York by Herb Lubalin, his lettering partners John Pistilli, Tom Carnase and Tony DiSpigna, and the International Typeface Corporation.
Métal hurlant Science-Fiction Comics (Mœbius, Druillet & Les Humanoïdes Associés)1974–1987 · Western Europe, North AmericaThe adult science-fiction comics of Métal hurlant, the Paris magazine founded in 1974 by Mœbius, Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Bernard Farkas.
Jamaican Dancehall Signs & Sleeve Art1980–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe street graphics of Jamaica's dancehall era.
Ghanaian Movie Poster1985–2005 · Sub-Saharan AfricaHand-painted posters commissioned by Ghana's mobile video clubs from about 1985, painted by apprenticed sign painters on stitched flour sacks to advertise VHS screenings of Hollywood, Hong Kong, Nigerian and Indian films.
Matatu & Nganya Art1990–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe commissioned livery of Kenya's privately owned minibus taxis, at its most elaborate the Nairobi nganya.
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.
Tamil Nadu Flex Banners2000–present · South AsiaThe digitally printed vinyl boards, locally called flex banners, that fan clubs, party cadres, businesses and families have put up along the roads of Tamil Nadu since about 2000, as flex displaced hand-painted cinema banners and cut-outs over the following decade.
Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics)2005–present · East AsiaPrivate cars, motorbikes and bicycles that Japanese fans of anime, manga and games cover with their favourite characters, named by the mid-2000s with the self-mocking word itasha, 'painful car'.

Styles that often use it 96

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

Styles that use it now and then 43

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.

Type as imagein 93 of 160
Dynamic asymmetryin 73 of 160
Agitational & persuasivein 73 of 160
Photomontagein 54 of 160
Full bleedin 76 of 160
Condensed displayin 46 of 160

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in space & hierarchy