Cel-Shaded Game Graphics × Claymorphism

Soft gradients and blurred shadows on inflated forms against hard-edged light bands and ink lines.

From the research on Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D)

Mix them and make something Cel-Shaded Game Graphics Claymorphism

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Claymorphism, their arrangement from Claymorphism, the finish from Cel-Shaded Game 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.

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) Claymorphism & Soft 3D

Type from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display
Colour from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Flat fields
Full polychrome
Form from Claymorphism: Rounded & pill
Geometric primitives
Composition from Claymorphism: Isolated object
Illusion of depth
Surface from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Hard offset shadow
Flat

Claymorphism avoids hard offset shadow and flat: 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 · Cel-Shaded Game Graphics

Pop

Sedgwick Ave Display, standing in for Graffiti handstyles and hand-drawn logo lettering (Jet Set Radio's logo by the graffiti artist Eric Haze, with tags sprayed across the 3D city)

Text · Claymorphism

A soft, toy-like 3D look from product design around 2020, given the name 'claymorphism' in a December 2021 article by Michał Malewicz. Icons, emoji, avatars and interface cards are modelled as fat, rounded volumes, as if made of clay or inflated vinyl, softly lit and floated alone on pale grounds in candy and pastel colours. Open 3D sets such as 3dicons and Microsoft's 3D Fluent Emoji carry the same look; in interfaces it is faked with two inner shadows and one large drop shadow.

Jost; Claymorphism used Geometric sans-serifs such as Poppins (Indian Type Foundry, 2014), kept to a few weights; Malewicz (quoted by Smashing Magazine) and LogRocket both advise minimal, restrained typography beside the clay forms, to counter their childlike feel and Rounded sans-serifs with soft terminals, such as Nunito (Vernon Adams) or VAG Rounded, only for the most childlike or playful products

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics, with a counter-accent from Claymorphism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) Claymorphism & Soft 3D

#f4e9d0 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e8402a accent · 18%
#8b7cf6 accent · 14%
#1e88d8 accent · 10%
#ff9fb6 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4e9d0;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e8402a;
  --accent-2: #8b7cf6;
  --accent-3: #1e88d8;
  --accent-4: #ff9fb6;
  --font-display: "Sedgwick Ave Display", cursive;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D): The characters, worlds and logos of these games (Link and The Wind Waker, Okami's Amaterasu, Borderlands, Guilty Gear, Eric Haze's Jet Set Radio logo) are owned by their publishers and artists, and Okami's gods and brush art draw on Shinto myth and Japanese ink painting: draw original characters, logos and tags in the shared idiom, never ask an image model for a named game, character or artist, and never present a generated picture as studio key art.

The two styles

2000–present · East Asia, North America, Western Europe, Global / networked Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) A look for real-time 3D video games in which normally lit models are quantised into two or three hard bands of flat, saturated colour and ringed with ink outlines, so a freely moving 3D world reads as a moving cartoon, anime cel or comic panel. Each game pairs the rendering with one borrowed graphic idiom: graffiti in Jet Set Radio, comic balloons in XIII, sumi-e brush and parchment in Okami, hand-drawn comic textures in Borderlands. It carries into key art, box art and logos.

Rounded purple and pink lettering reads “Grow Happier” above a smiling white-petaled flower with a yellow center and green leaves. The flower sits in a purple pot decorated with a pink heart, all rendered as soft, rounded three-dimensional forms against a pale lavender background.

2020–present · Global / networked Claymorphism & Soft 3D A soft, toy-like 3D look from product design around 2020, given the name 'claymorphism' in a December 2021 article by Michał Malewicz. Icons, emoji, avatars and interface cards are modelled as fat, rounded volumes, as if made of clay or inflated vinyl, softly lit and floated alone on pale grounds in candy and pastel colours. Open 3D sets such as 3dicons and Microsoft's 3D Fluent Emoji carry the same look; in interfaces it is faked with two inner shadows and one large drop shadow.