Cyberpunk Visual Style × Synthwave

Swap the sunset grid and chrome nostalgia for rain and grime to turn retro glow into dystopia.

From the research on Cyberpunk Visual Style

Mix them and make something Cyberpunk Visual Style Synthwave

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Synthwave, their arrangement from Cyberpunk Visual Style, the finish from Synthwave. 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.

Cyberpunk Visual Style Synthwave / Outrun

Type from Cyberpunk Visual Style: Eclectic mixing
All caps
Colour from Cyberpunk Visual Style: Dark ground
Fluorescent & neon
Form from Synthwave: Cosmic & celestial
Geometric primitives
Composition from Cyberpunk Visual Style: Horror vacui
Layered information

Synthwave avoids horror vacui: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Synthwave: Chrome & 3D render
Glitch

The type

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

Display · Cyberpunk Visual Style

Future

Monoton, standing in for Japanese and Chinese neon signage characters beside Latin lettering

Text · Synthwave

The retro-futurist look of synthwave music: a 1980s revival that grew from mid-2000s French electro and online synth scenes, took its other name from Sega's arcade racer Out Run (1986) and reached the mainstream with Drive (2011). Its register runs from the brooding night drives of Kavinsky and Hotline Miami to the affectionate parody of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Kung Fury. The visuals, settled around 2010–2013, recall the era's film posters, arcades and VHS: a neon grid running to a banded setting sun, chrome logotypes and hot-pink script, palms and sports cars at night, tape noise.

VT323; Synthwave used Mistral (Roger Excoffon, Fonderie Olive, 1953), the brush script set in hot pink for the Drive poster title and Custom chrome-bevelled, airbrushed logotypes with star glints, after 1980s film-poster and arcade titles

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Cyberpunk Visual Style, with a counter-accent from Synthwave. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cyberpunk Visual Style Synthwave / Outrun

#0b0c14 ground · 36%
#39ff14 ink · 14%
#05d9e8 accent · 18%
#ff2a6d accent · 14%
#ff9f1c accent · 10%
#7a1fa2 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0b0c14;
  --ink: #39ff14;
  --accent-1: #05d9e8;
  --accent-2: #ff2a6d;
  --accent-3: #ff9f1c;
  --accent-4: #7a1fa2;
  --font-display: "Monoton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Cyberpunk Visual Style: Cyberpunk's East Asian cityscapes are often criticised as techno-Orientalism, which casts Asia as futuristic yet cold and dehumanising; Blade Runner and Neuromancer are both critiqued on these grounds. Do not use Japanese or Chinese script as exotic decoration or set meaningless characters on every sign; use real, correct text, and do not make Asian people or places the faceless backdrop of a dystopia.

Synthwave / Outrun: Since about 2015 far-right 'fashwave' has appropriated synthwave, setting fascist symbols, classical statues and slogans on neon grids and swapping the classic neon sun for the Nazi Black Sun; keep the sun a plain banded disc, avoid sunwheel, eagle and bust-plus-slogan layouts, and check where borrowed fan art and music come from.

The two styles

1982–present · Global / networked, North America, East Asia Cyberpunk Visual Style A dystopian urban look of high technology and low life: night-city scenes in which neon signs, rain-slicked surfaces and glowing screens crowd a dark ground. Bilingual Latin and East Asian signage, grimy overload and green-cyan terminal glyphs mark it. It grew from Blade Runner, Akira and Neuromancer.

A neon-lit sports car seen from behind travels down a reflective, palm-lined highway toward a futuristic skyline and a huge striped pink-and-yellow sun. Angular lettering reading “NIGHTRIDE” fills the starry sky above, alongside planets and shooting stars.

2006–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Oceania Synthwave / Outrun The retro-futurist look of synthwave music: a 1980s revival that grew from mid-2000s French electro and online synth scenes, took its other name from Sega's arcade racer Out Run (1986) and reached the mainstream with Drive (2011). Its register runs from the brooding night drives of Kavinsky and Hotline Miami to the affectionate parody of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Kung Fury. The visuals, settled around 2010–2013, recall the era's film posters, arcades and VHS: a neon grid running to a banded setting sun, chrome logotypes and hot-pink script, palms and sports cars at night, tape noise.