Style combination · Pairs well

Chinese National-Style Animation × Guochao

For China-chic packaging and campaigns, borrow the method (an opera-mask face, scrolling clouds, an ink wash on empty paper) rather than quoting the studio's licensed characters.

From the research on Chinese National-Style Animation (Shanghai Animation Film Studio)

Mix them and make something Chinese National-Style Animation Guochao

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Chinese National-Style Animation, their arrangement from Chinese National-Style Animation, the finish from Chinese National-Style Animation. 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.

Chinese National-Style Animation (Shanghai Animation Film Studio) Guochao (China-Chic National Trend)

Type from Guochao: Brush & pen calligraphy
Type as image
Colour from Guochao: Jewel & metallic
Limited spot colours
Form from Chinese National-Style Animation: Stylised figuration
Biomorphic curves
Composition from Chinese National-Style Animation: Generous white space
Isolated object
Surface from Chinese National-Style Animation: Painterly brushwork
Flat

The type

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

Display · Guochao

Again

Kaushan Script, standing in for Bold brush calligraphy (kaishu and xingshu) for hero characters

Text · Chinese National-Style Animation

The 'national style' of the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which turned from Disney and Soviet models to Chinese media: Peking-opera masks and movement, paper-cut and folded-paper figures, mural and New Year print colour and, from 1960, ink-wash painting set in motion after Qi Baishi and Li Keran. Graded ink on empty paper, flat outlined figures over painted grounds and brush-written titles carried fables and myths, from Havoc in Heaven (1961-1964) to Feeling from Mountain and Water (1988).

Zen Maru Gothic; Chinese National-Style Animation used Running-script brush calligraphy for main titles and Regular-script brush calligraphy for credits, written in black on pale paper

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Guochao, with a counter-accent from Chinese National-Style Animation. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Chinese National-Style Animation (Shanghai Animation Film Studio) Guochao (China-Chic National Trend)

#161616 ground · 36%
#f3ead8 ink · 14%
#e3b33b accent · 18%
#b8232f accent · 14%
#3c8d72 accent · 10%
#2e5d57 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #161616;
  --ink: #f3ead8;
  --accent-1: #e3b33b;
  --accent-2: #b8232f;
  --accent-3: #3c8d72;
  --accent-4: #2e5d57;
  --font-display: "Kaushan Script", cursive;
  --font-text: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Chinese National-Style Animation (Shanghai Animation Film Studio): The films and their character designs, from Zhang Guangyu's Monkey King to Zhang Ding's Nezha, are the work of named designers at a studio that survives as Shanghai Animation Film Studio Co., Ltd. and still exhibits them: borrow the method (graded ink on empty paper, a jointed paper figure, an opera-mask face), never copy a particular character, and never present a generated image as a studio film. The paper-cut films drew on a living folk craft and shadow theatre, so credit those traditions and their makers rather than treating them as free motifs. Opera-mask colours and patterns mark particular character types, so do not paint them onto real people or ethnic groups as caricature. The national style was itself pursued with state backing (a vice premier proposed animating Qi Baishi, and Nezha was made for the People's Republic's thirtieth anniversary), and the studio also made didactic and political films; in the Cultural Revolution its classics were denounced as 'poisonous weeds' and its artists, Te Wei among them, imprisoned or sent to the countryside. Do not present the films as propaganda or as apolitical folk art, and do not dress a design in revolutionary slogans as period decor.

Guochao (China-Chic National Trend): Guochao often lifts ethnic-minority crafts (Miao silverwork and embroidery, Dai and Mongolian motifs) and intangible-heritage techniques as packaging finishes. Credit and pay the communities and craftspeople whose patterns are used, commission or collaborate with practitioners rather than copying motifs, and remember that dragons, imperial yellow and national symbols carry political as well as decorative meaning.