Style combination · Contrasts

Corporate Memphis × Internet Ugly

Brand-safe flat illustration is what meme makers mock; a brand that borrows meme templates risks the backlash Douglas describes, as communities drop co-opted formats.

From the research on Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular

Mix them and make something Corporate Memphis Internet Ugly

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Corporate Memphis, their arrangement from Corporate Memphis, the finish from Internet Ugly. 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.

Corporate Memphis Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular

Type from Internet Ugly: All caps
Condensed display
Colour from Corporate Memphis: Flat fields
Full polychrome
Form from Corporate Memphis: Distortion & exaggeration
Stylised figuration
Composition from Corporate Memphis: Isolated object
Generous white space
Surface from Internet Ugly: Glitch
Hard offset shadow

The type

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

Display · Internet Ugly

Yay!

Anton, standing in for Impact (Geoffrey Lee, Stephenson Blake, 1965), set white with a black outline

Text · Corporate Memphis

The flat vector illustration style that became the default visual voice of big tech in the late 2010s: faceless, ethnically non-specific figures with elongated limbs and tiny heads, drawn in bright flat colour among blobs, leaves and confetti. Codified in Buck's Alegria system for Facebook (2017) and spread by open libraries such as unDraw and Humaaans, it was later named, half-mockingly, after the Memphis Group.

Hanken Grotesk; Corporate Memphis used Circular and Airbnb Cereal

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Corporate Memphis, with a counter-accent from Internet Ugly. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Corporate Memphis Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular

#ffffff ground · 36%
#2f2e41 ink · 14%
#ffc857 accent · 18%
#00a2e8 accent · 14%
#6c63ff accent · 10%
#ff7f27 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #2f2e41;
  --accent-1: #ffc857;
  --accent-2: #00a2e8;
  --accent-3: #6c63ff;
  --accent-4: #ff7f27;
  --font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular: Most meme templates are photographs of real people, often children, or licensed stock. Success Kid is Laney Griner's son: the photo has been licensed to advertisers, and in January 2020 she sent a cease-and-desist letter to a congressman whose fundraising campaign used it without permission. Distracted Boyfriend is microstock, and its photographer says use without a proper licence is not allowed. License a template or make a new picture for commercial or political work. Check what a format means now: some characters that spread through 4chan were taken up as hate symbols (the ADL listed Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie's 2005 Boy's Club character, in 2016, while noting that most uses are not hateful). Reaction images of Black people posted by non-Black users and brands read as digital blackface (Lauren Michele Jackson, Teen Vogue, 2017), and deep-fried memes came out of Black Twitter, so credit where formats come from. When brands and campaigns borrow a format, its makers often protest or drop it (Douglas).

The two styles

A brightly coloured illustration shows a person with a dark ponytail striding with one knee raised and arms spread, wearing a yellow shirt, purple trousers and teal shoes. The words “Move Brighter” appear above them on a white background scattered with colourful dots and curved marks.

2017–present · North America, Global / networked Corporate Memphis The flat vector illustration style that became the default visual voice of big tech in the late 2010s: faceless, ethnically non-specific figures with elongated limbs and tiny heads, drawn in bright flat colour among blobs, leaves and confetti. Codified in Buck's Alegria system for Facebook (2017) and spread by open libraries such as unDraw and Humaaans, it was later named, half-mockingly, after the Memphis Group. 2003–present · Global / networked, North America Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular A deliberately amateur image dialect of forums, imageboards and social feeds, named 'Internet Ugly' by Nick Douglas in 2014. Figures are drawn with a mouse in MS Paint, photos are found and crudely pasted together, and captions shout in white Impact capitals with a black outline, top and bottom, or in Comic Sans. Re-saving and 'deep-frying' wear the pixels down. The joke's setup and punchline are the layout, and every template is made for a crowd to copy; some are clean stock photos that only the labels make a meme.

More combinations

With Corporate Memphis

All 28 combinations with Corporate Memphis

With Internet Ugly

All 18 combinations with Internet Ugly

Every style combination