Style combination · Contrasts

Corporate Memphis × Memphis Design

Corporate Memphis tamed the original's clash and irony; restore real colour conflict and wit to escape generic tech illustration.

From the research on Memphis Design

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.

From the research on Corporate Memphis

Mix them and make something Corporate Memphis Memphis Design

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

Type from Memphis Design: Geometric sans
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 Memphis Design: Flat

The type

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

Display · Memphis Design

Hello

Jost, standing in for Futura

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 Memphis Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Corporate Memphis Memphis Design

#ffffff ground · 36%
#2f2e41 ink · 14%
#ffc857 accent · 18%
#ff5a36 accent · 14%
#6c63ff accent · 10%
#2ec4b6 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #2f2e41;
  --accent-1: #ffc857;
  --accent-2: #ff5a36;
  --accent-3: #6c63ff;
  --accent-4: #2ec4b6;
  --font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

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.

A dense geometric pattern on a pink background combines turquoise polka-dot triangles, yellow squares with black dashes, blue circles with yellow sprinkles, orange-red zigzags, and scattered squiggles and small shapes. Bold black offset shapes give many motifs a shadowed, layered appearance.

1981–1988 · Southern Europe Memphis Design The Milan collective founded by Ettore Sottsass, whose furniture, laminates and objects (first shown in September 1981) became a graphic language of their own. Clashing colours, speckles, squiggles, zigzags and primitive geometric shapes were combined with deliberate bad taste, mocking modernist good form while quoting 1950s kitsch, Pop and Art Deco.

More combinations

With Corporate Memphis

All 28 combinations with Corporate Memphis

With Memphis Design

All 17 combinations with Memphis Design

Every style combination