Stylogeny combining Acid Graphics × PC Music Graphics

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Style combination · Contrasts

Acid Graphics × PC Music Graphics

Neighbours in the late 2010s club scene, but acid graphics crowd chrome, blackletter and neon on black, where PC Music isolates one clean object on a plain field.

From the research on PC Music Graphics

Mix them and make something Acid Graphics PC Music Graphics

SignalSignalSignalAcid Graphics × PC Music Graphics2016 · 2013
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from PC Music Graphics, their arrangement from PC Music Graphics, the finish from Acid Graphics. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

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.

Acid Graphics / New Ugly PC Music Graphics

Type from Acid Graphics
Colour from Acid Graphics
Form from PC Music Graphics
Composition from PC Music Graphics
Surface from Acid Graphics

PC Music Graphics avoids glitch: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

02

The type

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

Display · Acid Graphics

Signal

Tilt Warp, standing in for Liquid-chrome and melted custom lettering

Text · PC Music Graphics

The release artwork of London's PC Music label (2013-2023) and its immediate circle (Diamond Wright, Sophie, Timothy Luke): early hyperpop that treats a song as a polished synthetic product, not the later glitchy, maximalist hyperpop. One object, often a 3D render or a retouched portrait, gleams on a plain ground: plastic, milled aluminium, a pink capsule, a blue disc. Ideas are taken literally and pushed until strange, with puns on brands and computer culture. Dazed called the look 'bouncy, shiny, commercial, plastic, unnatural, metallic'.

Inter; PC Music Graphics used Custom display lettering after Rudolf Koch and Berthold Wolpe, with a Renaissance, woodcut feel and Comic Sans and other early-web system defaults, quoted knowingly

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Acid Graphics, with a counter-accent from PC Music Graphics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Acid Graphics / New Ugly PC Music Graphics

  • #000000 ground · 36%
  • #ffffff ink · 14%
  • #ccff00 accent · 18%
  • #f2ff1f accent · 14%
  • #ff1ad9 accent · 10%
  • #e0151f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #000000;
  --ink: #ffffff;
  --accent-1: #ccff00;
  --accent-2: #f2ff1f;
  --accent-3: #ff1ad9;
  --accent-4: #e0151f;
  --font-display: "Tilt Warp", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

Large silver lettering reading “Night RUSH” fills the top of a black poster crowded with spiky chrome forms, reflective spheres, orbit-like rings and starbursts. Neon pink, lime green and blue pixelated patches and fine grid lines fill the spaces between the metallic shapes. 2016–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Central Europe Acid Graphics / New Ugly A late-2010s club and poster style that updates 1990s rave graphics with modern 3D tools: liquid-chrome and melting lettering, neo-tribal spikes, wireframes, op-art patterns and acid-green palettes on black, mixed with blackletter and stretched grotesques. Associated with David Rudnick, Studio Cryo and Anja Kaiser and collected on Instagram's @acidgraphix, it overlaps with the 'New Ugly' turn towards deliberate antidesign. A transparent heart-shaped bottle filled with pink liquid and bubbles sits on a white background, topped by a rounded clear cap and silver collar. Glossy pink balloon-like lettering spells “DREAMGEL” above it, with pink star-shaped glints above the lettering and on the cap. 2013–present · Western Europe, North America PC Music Graphics The release artwork of London's PC Music label (2013-2023) and its immediate circle (Diamond Wright, Sophie, Timothy Luke): early hyperpop that treats a song as a polished synthetic product, not the later glitchy, maximalist hyperpop. One object, often a 3D render or a retouched portrait, gleams on a plain ground: plastic, milled aluminium, a pink capsule, a blue disc. Ideas are taken literally and pushed until strange, with puns on brands and computer culture. Dazed called the look 'bouncy, shiny, commercial, plastic, unnatural, metallic'.

05

More combinations

With Acid Graphics

All 12 combinations with Acid Graphics

With PC Music Graphics

Every style combination