Style combination · Contrasts

Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster × Matatu

The atlas's nearest genome: both are built on painted, glossy star portraits at a huge scale, but the Bollywood poster is a printed and hoarding-painted montage that sells one film, while the nganya is one commissioned vehicle that mixes global pop, sport and politics with hip-hop slang, lights and sound.

From the research on Matatu & Nganya Art

Mix them and make something Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster Matatu

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Matatu, their arrangement from Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster, the finish from Matatu. 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.

Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster Matatu & Nganya Art

Type from Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display
Colour from Matatu: Full polychrome
Gradients
Form from Matatu: Naturalistic depiction
Emblems & badges
Composition from Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster: Collage & layering
Extreme scale contrast
Surface from Matatu: Painterly brushwork
Gloss & highlights

The type

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

Display · Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster

Together

Yatra One; Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster used Hand-drawn 3D title logos and Extruded and drop-shadowed display capitals

Text · Matatu

The commissioned livery of Kenya's privately owned minibus taxis, at its most elaborate the Nairobi nganya. Garage painters spray and airbrush near-photographic portraits of rappers, footballers, politicians and film heroes across the sides and rear window. They add a vehicle name and hip-hop catchphrases in shaded display capitals, brand logos and club crests in paint or computer-cut stickers. LEDs, video screens and a loud sound system complete it, so the bus wins young passengers. Banned under the 2004 Michuki rules, it returned openly in the mid-2010s.

Oswald; Matatu used Airbrushed 3D graffiti capitals and Chrome-shaded outlined block capitals

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Matatu, with a counter-accent from Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Hand-Painted Bollywood Poster Matatu & Nganya Art

#0e0e12 ground · 36%
#ffd21f ink · 14%
#1f6bff accent · 18%
#f28c1c accent · 14%
#ff2a8a accent · 10%
#b3121b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0e0e12;
  --ink: #ffd21f;
  --accent-1: #1f6bff;
  --accent-2: #f28c1c;
  --accent-3: #ff2a8a;
  --accent-4: #b3121b;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Oswald", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Matatu & Nganya Art: Matatu art is the living trade of named Kenyan garage painters and the culture of the young crews and passengers who ride the routes, so commission and credit Kenyan painters rather than lifting a particular vehicle's design, name or a painter's signature. Its portraits show real people (musicians, athletes, politicians), so do not reproduce a real person's likeness or a brand's logo in commercial work without rights, and never present a generated image as a real nganya. Kenya's police chief has said he loves art "but not one that celebrates gangsters or violence", and the Matatu Owners Association bars insulting, inciting, pornographic, alcohol and violence content: do not use it as shorthand for lawlessness or as a generic "chaotic African bus" backdrop.