Style combination · Contrasts
Corporate Memphis × Push Pin Style
Generic, faceless corporate figures are the opposite of Push Pin's authored characters; use Push Pin to restore a distinct illustrative voice.
Mix them and make something Corporate Memphis Push Pin Style
01
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 Push Pin Style
- Type from Push Pin Style
- Colour from Corporate Memphis
- Form from Corporate Memphis
- Composition from Corporate Memphis
- Surface from Push Pin Style
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
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
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Corporate Memphis, with a counter-accent from Push Pin Style. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Corporate Memphis Push Pin Style
-
#ffffffground · 36% -
#2f2e41ink · 14% -
#ffc857accent · 18% -
#6c63ffaccent · 14% -
#e0512faccent · 10% -
#ff7f6eaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #ffffff;
--ink: #2f2e41;
--accent-1: #ffc857;
--accent-2: #6c63ff;
--accent-3: #e0512f;
--accent-4: #ff7f6e;
--font-display: "Righteous", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Corporate Memphis
- Polish Poster School Contrasts · Polish poster metaphor and painterly ambiguity show how much illustration can say once it stops being generic.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Add riso grain and two spot inks to the figures to escape the over-familiar SaaS sheen and give them printed warmth.
- DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Pairs well · Its photo-led start-up sibling: pair Corporate Memphis figures with blanding's pastel ground and geometric sans when a brand needs both people and product.
- Brutalist Web Design Contrasts · Brutalism's raw honesty is the opposite of this friendly gloss; reach for it when a brand needs credibility over cheer.
- Memphis Design Contrasts · 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.
- Rubber-Hose Revival (Cartoon Mascot Graphics) Contrasts · Both draw stretched figures in flat colour, but the revival gives each brand its own outlined, nostalgic mascot where Corporate Memphis uses interchangeable faceless people.
- CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design) Pairs well · Both use flat fills and simplified figures; borrow its pastel UI-illustration palette, but keep faces and expressions, which Corporate Memphis drops.
- Data Humanism Contrasts · Both aim to feel warm and human, but Corporate Memphis draws generic faceless figures for mood, while data humanism draws the specific data of specific people. Replace stock warmth with a drawing of real data when a brand needs sincerity.
With Push Pin Style
- Psychedelic Poster Pairs well · Both revive Art Nouveau lettering; add Push Pin's clean contour and wit to tame psychedelic excess into readable posters.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · Push Pin defined itself against Helvetica neutrality; pit a bespoke illustrated letterform against a Swiss grid to dramatise personality versus system.
- Belle Époque Lithographic Poster Pairs well · Borrow Chéret's dancing figures alongside Push Pin's revived display faces for exuberant entertainment graphics.
- Phototype Expressive Typography (Lubalin & U&lc) Pairs well · Push Pin revives old styles through drawn figures and Lubalin through the letters themselves; pair a Push Pin illustration with a swash, tightly kerned Lubalin headline for full 1970s New York warmth.
- UPA & Cartoon Modern Contrasts · Its New York contemporary shared UPA's comic, distorted figures and irony but went the opposite way on ornament: Push Pin piled on revived Victorian and Art Nouveau lettering, borders and ornament, while UPA stripped the picture to a figure, a line and a flat field.
- Angura Theatre Poster Pairs well · Yokoo started from Push Pin's illustrated eclecticism; pair Push Pin's period-pastiche lettering with angura's crowded Japanese ephemera.
- Ligne Claire (Franco-Belgian Clear Line) Contrasts · Push Pin also draws in outline and flat colour, but mixes revived Victorian and Art Nouveau display faces, ornament and distortion; switch to ligne claire for one disciplined line, no ornament and evenly legible scenes.
- Blue Note Jazz Sleeve Modernism Contrasts · Same city and years, opposite method: Push Pin draws figures and revives Victorian display letters, while Blue Note crops a photograph and sets one grotesque huge.