Style combination · Contrasts

Analog Horror Graphics × Hauntology

Henty, who puts his study of analog horror 'firmly in the remit of Hauntology', calls the subgenre 'deeply intertwined and expressive of the nostalgic trends Hauntology rests on'. Both fake a past institution's public voice and let it turn eerie, but Ghost Box and Scarfolk design 1970s print in flat offset colour on paper, while analog horror fakes 1980s and 1990s broadcasts and tapes on screen and lets the signal decay. Choose the printed pastiche or the corrupted transmission.

From the research on Analog Horror Graphics

Mix them and make something Analog Horror Graphics Hauntology

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Hauntology, their arrangement from Analog Horror Graphics, the finish from Analog Horror Graphics. 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.

Analog Horror Graphics Hauntology & Ghost Box Design

Type from Hauntology: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Colour from Analog Horror Graphics: Flat fields
Dark ground
Form from Hauntology: Geometric primitives
Naturalistic depiction
Composition from Analog Horror Graphics: Sequential narrative
Full bleed
Surface from Analog Horror Graphics: Grain & noise
Glitch

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

The type

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

Display · Hauntology

Again

Archivo; Hauntology used Monotype Grotesque (MT Grotesque), the main face of the Ghost Box front covers, chosen over Helvetica and Clarendon (Bitstream's cut) on Ghost Box back covers and booklets

Text · Analog Horror Graphics

A 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. Plain capitals on flat black or blue screens give calm, official instructions that turn sinister, as VHS grain, static, tracking errors and signal breakup half-hide the threat. Usually dated from No Through Road (2009), it takes its broadcast look from Kris Straub's Local 58 (2015), whose slogan 'ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz' named it.

VT323; Analog Horror Graphics used The all-caps notices of emergency-alert screens, given one stark message at a time and 'Grainy VCR text onscreen' (Kok, 2022)

The colours

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

Analog Horror Graphics Hauntology & Ghost Box Design

#0b0b0b ground · 36%
#ececec ink · 14%
#bfbf00 accent · 18%
#f9a61a accent · 14%
#bf0000 accent · 10%
#01b2de accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0b0b0b;
  --ink: #ececec;
  --accent-1: #bfbf00;
  --accent-2: #f9a61a;
  --accent-3: #bf0000;
  --accent-4: #01b2de;
  --font-display: "Archivo", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Analog Horror Graphics: Fake emergency alerts can be mistaken for real ones: in the United States 47 CFR § 11.45 bars transmitting EAS codes or the Attention Signal, or a recording or simulation of them, outside real emergencies and authorised tests, so keep real alert tones, codes and agency names out of anything that may be broadcast, and label a fictional warning as fiction. Keep strobing static and flashing alert screens to three flashes a second or fewer (WCAG 2.3.1). Invent the seal and flag on a fictional alert screen: real national emblems can be protected by law, and Indonesian law forbids showing the Garuda Pancasila damaged or altered from its prescribed shape, colours and proportions (first in Law 24/2009, since moved into the Criminal Code and narrowed by the Constitutional Court). The blue Peringatan Darurat Garuda is also a living pro-democracy protest symbol, not a horror prop. The genre corrupts other people's footage (The Beginner's Bible in The Mandela Catalogue), so use public-domain or licensed material. Gemini Home Entertainment's creatures grew out of 'classic internet creepypastas surrounding Skinwalkers or the Wendigo' (Kok, 2022). The skin-walker belongs to Navajo (Diné) tradition and is rarely discussed with outsiders, and Native critics such as Adrienne Keene have objected to non-Navajo writers using it; the wendigo comes from Algonquian folklore. Do not turn these or other Indigenous beliefs into monsters for a design.

Hauntology & Ghost Box Design: The Ghost Box sleeves and logo, Littler's Scarfolk images and Frances Castle's Clay Pipe sleeves are in copyright, and much of what they imitate (Penguin covers, government public information posters, textbook illustrations, archive photographs) has its own rights holders: build a new fictional institution from public-domain or licensed material rather than copying a Ghost Box sleeve or Penguin's trade dress.