Style combination · Pairs well
CalArts Style × Corporate Memphis
Both use flat fills and simplified figures; borrow its pastel UI-illustration palette, but keep faces and expressions, which Corporate Memphis drops.
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.
CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design) Corporate Memphis
- Type from Corporate Memphis
- Colour from Corporate Memphis
- Form from CalArts Style
- Composition from CalArts Style
- Surface from CalArts Style
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Text · CalArts Style
A pejorative, disputed label for the rounded character design of 2010s American TV animation: big heads, dot or sliver eyes, thin limbs, soft uniform outlines and flat candy colours. Renzetti calls it meaningless name-calling; Muto calls it oversimplifying and vague. It lumps very different shows together and is partly a fan-culture proxy. Visual traits are an editorial synthesis, not from the cited article.
Nunito; CalArts Style used Hand-drawn show-title lettering and Rounded sans-serifs
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Corporate Memphis, with a counter-accent from CalArts Style. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design) Corporate Memphis
-
#ffffffground · 36% -
#2f2e41ink · 14% -
#ffc857accent · 18% -
#6c63ffaccent · 14% -
#7aa7f0accent · 10% -
#ff7f6eaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #ffffff;
--ink: #2f2e41;
--accent-1: #ffc857;
--accent-2: #6c63ff;
--accent-3: #7aa7f0;
--accent-4: #ff7f6e;
--font-display: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Nunito", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With CalArts Style
- Flash Vector Cartoon (Newgrounds-Era Web Animation) Pairs well · Direct precursor: both build flat-vector, rounded characters with even strokes that a crew can redraw and tween; this style adds sliver or dot eyes and softer, thinner-limbed proportions.
- Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning (LINE) Pairs well · Reduced faces and bold soft outlines carry emotion at small sizes, so character designs translate well into stickers and avatars.
- Rubber-Hose Revival (Cartoon Mascot Graphics) Contrasts · Inkier, pie-eyed, nostalgic 1930s mascot drawing against thin-limbed, flat-coloured, contemporary character design.
- UPA & Cartoon Modern Contrasts · Mid-century angular, graphic stylisation against soft rounded forms; mixing them gives a more designed, less generic look.
With Corporate Memphis
- Polish Poster School Contrasts · Polish poster metaphor and painterly ambiguity show how much illustration can say once it stops being generic.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Add riso grain and two spot inks to the figures to escape the over-familiar SaaS sheen and give them printed warmth.
- DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Pairs well · Its photo-led start-up sibling: pair Corporate Memphis figures with blanding's pastel ground and geometric sans when a brand needs both people and product.
- Brutalist Web Design Contrasts · Brutalism's raw honesty is the opposite of this friendly gloss; reach for it when a brand needs credibility over cheer.
- Memphis Design Contrasts · The original's real colour clash, irony and Sottsass or Du Pasquier patterns are the foil to generic confetti blobs; borrow one genuine Memphis pattern to give the illustration an edge.
- Rubber-Hose Revival (Cartoon Mascot Graphics) Contrasts · Both draw stretched figures in flat colour, but the revival gives each brand its own outlined, nostalgic mascot where Corporate Memphis uses interchangeable faceless people.
- Data Humanism Contrasts · Both aim to feel warm and human, but Corporate Memphis draws generic faceless figures for mood, while data humanism draws the specific data of specific people. Replace stock warmth with a drawing of real data when a brand needs sincerity.
- Corporate Identity Modernism Contrasts · Its successor trades abstract authority for rubbery friendliness; compare the two to decide how institutional or human a brand should feel.