Style combination · Contrasts

Corporate Memphis × Polish Information Picture Book

Both draw flat, simplified figures on light grounds, but Corporate Memphis uses them for mood around a single message, while here every small figure is labelled and stands for a fact; give each figure a job.

From the research on Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)

Mix them and make something Corporate Memphis Polish Information Picture Book

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Corporate Memphis, their arrangement from Polish Information Picture Book, the finish from Corporate Memphis. 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 Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)

Type from Polish Information Picture Book: Hand-lettering
All caps
Colour from Corporate Memphis: Flat fields
Full polychrome
Form from Corporate Memphis: Distortion & exaggeration
Stylised figuration
Composition from Polish Information Picture Book: All-over field
Horror vacui

Corporate Memphis avoids horror vacui: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Corporate Memphis: Flat

The type

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

Display · Polish Information Picture Book

Yay!

Londrina Solid; Polish Information Picture Book used Mrs White and Cartographer

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 Polish Information Picture Book. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Corporate Memphis Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)

#ffffff ground · 36%
#2f2e41 ink · 14%
#ffc857 accent · 18%
#6c63ff accent · 14%
#e0876a accent · 10%
#3ec7b0 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #2f2e41;
  --accent-1: #ffc857;
  --accent-2: #6c63ff;
  --accent-3: #e0876a;
  --accent-4: #3ec7b0;
  --font-display: "Londrina Solid", cursive;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry): The leading authors are living, named illustrators whose books are in copyright, so draw your own figures, maps and lettering instead of asking an image model for the Mizielińskis', Bajtlik's or Karski's hand, and never present a generated spread as a page from Mapy, Mamoko or another Dwie Siostry book. Picture atlases sum up whole countries in a few small figures: show people through what they do, make and celebrate, ask people from a country to check its spread, and avoid reducing a culture to costume, cliché or skin colour.