Space & hierarchy · Density
Measured density
Moderate, even density with clear breathing room.
A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under space & hierarchy: how is attention distributed?
- styles make it
- 76
- as a defining choice
- 2
- as a usual one
- 60
- now and then
- 14
- avoid it
- 1
Styles defined by it 2
For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.
- German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung)The German reform of the book, from the magazine Pan (1895) to the private presses that ended around 1933.
Styles that often use it 60
A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.
- Ethiopian Ge'ez Manuscript & Haräg IlluminationThe manuscript art of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, written in the Ge'ez syllabary on parchment from the Garima Gospels (radiocarbon-dated to roughly the 4th–7th centuries) to the present.
- Maghrebi Script (Maghribi Calligraphy of al-Andalus and North Africa)The family of Arabic scripts of al-Andalus and North Africa, descended from early Kufic bookhands.
- Persian Nastaʿlīq Calligraphy (Qiṭʿa, Chalipa and Siyāh-mashq)The 'hanging' script of Persian poetry and an art of the single sheet.
- Đông Hồ & Hàng Trống Folk PrintsVietnam's two classic folk-print schools, bought for Tết. Đông Hồ families press each colour from its own carved block onto giấy điệp, dó paper brushed with ground scallop shell whose streaked, faintly sparkling surface serves as the white, and print the black line last.
- Sápmi Graphic Identity (Duodji & Gákti Colour Code)Duodji is Sámi handicraft: hard work in wood, horn and bone, soft work in skin and cloth; drums painted with alder-bark figures survive from the 17th and 18th centuries.
- Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)The flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament.
- London Transport DesignThe design programme Frank Pick built for London's Underground from 1908 and the London Passenger Transport Board (1933–40), continued by Harold Hutchison (1947–66).
- Taishō Roman & Lyrical IllustrationThe lyrical illustration (jojōga) of late-Meiji to early-Shōwa Japan, led by Takehisa Yumeji: willowy, large-eyed women in kimono drawn with an Art Nouveau contour, set among camellias and kimono patterns and lettered by hand.
- Casablanca School Graphic ModernismA postcolonial modernism formed at the Casablanca fine-art school under Farid Belkahia, where Mohamed Melehi, Mohammed Chabâa and colleagues set Amazigh rugs and jewellery, painted ceilings and calligraphy beside a Bauhaus-style merging of art, craft and design.
- Roots Reggae Sleeve Art & Rasta IconographyThe record sleeves of roots reggae, from Catch a Fire (1973) until dancehall took over in the 1980s.
- Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)One 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.
- Frutiger AeroThe glossy, optimistic look of consumer technology from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, retrospectively named in 2017 by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute after Windows Vista's Aero interface and Adrian Frutiger's humanist sans.
- Lo-fi Anime AestheticThe look of YouTube's 24/7 lo-fi hip hop streams.
- Neo-BrutalismA friendly, commercial descendant of web brutalism that keeps its blunt boxes but adds candy colour: thick black outlines, hard unblurred offset shadows, flat saturated fills and chunky sans-serif type on conventional, usable layouts.
Styles that use it now and then 14
An occasional choice in these styles.
- Chinese Calligraphy & Seal Carving (Shufa & Zhuanke)c. 0–present
- Lotería Card Imagery (Mexican Lotería)1887–present
- Glasgow Style1890–1914
- Senegalese Sufi Devotional Imagery (Souwère Glass Painting and Amadou Bamba Portraits)1900–present
- Arnhem Land Bark Painting & Rarrk1912–present
- Amazonian Boat Lettering (Abridores de Letras)1925–present
- Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design1952–1990
- Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism1953–1990
- Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai)1973–present
- Lebanese Civil War Party Poster1975–1990
- Bitmap & Pixel Graphics1977–1995
- City Pop Illustration1979–present
- Natural Wine Label Art2007–present
- Corporate Memphis2017–present
It often goes with
Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.
- Warm & approachablein 40 of 76
- Light groundin 64 of 76
- Restrained accentsin 48 of 76
- Framed panelsin 52 of 76
- Borders & framesin 41 of 76
- Authoritative & institutionalin 35 of 76