Cyworld Minihompy × International Typographic Style

Neutral grid and objective type against a page made of bought ornaments, pastel skins and a cute avatar.

From the research on Cyworld Minihompy & Minimi (Korean Mini-Homepage Culture)

Mix them and make something Cyworld Minihompy International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Cyworld Minihompy, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from Cyworld Minihompy. 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.

Cyworld Minihompy & Minimi (Korean Mini-Homepage Culture) International Typographic Style

Type from International Typographic Style: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Type as image
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Cyworld Minihompy: Stylised figuration
Rectilinear
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry
Surface from Cyworld Minihompy: Flat

The type

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

Display · International Typographic Style

Order

Inter Tight, standing in for Akzidenz-Grotesk

Text · Cyworld Minihompy

The personal mini-homepage of Korea's Cyworld: one fixed, framed template that every user decorated item by item with a paid currency of acorns (dotori). A title bar; a left column with profile photo, mood line and friend list; in the centre the miniroom, a small isometric room of bought pixel furniture where a small pixel-style avatar (the minimi) lives; a right-hand menu of tabs; and a visitor counter. Selfies, diary entries, guestbook notes and wistful captions made it, in Korean press words, the nation's collective diary and photo album.

Inter; Cyworld Minihompy used Gulim (굴림), the default Korean Windows system face of Korean web pages and Dotum (돋움), the companion Korean system sans

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from Cyworld Minihompy. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cyworld Minihompy & Minimi (Korean Mini-Homepage Culture) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#f58220 accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#a9cfe8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #f58220;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #a9cfe8;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Cyworld Minihompy & Minimi (Korean Mini-Homepage Culture): Cyworld, minihompy and minimi are trade names of a company that has relaunched the service: draw new avatars, rooms and frames rather than copying Cyworld's own items, logo or interface art. Real minihompys hold private people's selfies, diaries and comments; do not reproduce or scrape them as examples. The palette is an evocation of the pastel skins and light frames, not a sourced record of Cyworld's interface colours; the orange is unsourced.

The two styles

2001–2015 · East Asia Cyworld Minihompy & Minimi (Korean Mini-Homepage Culture) The personal mini-homepage of Korea's Cyworld: one fixed, framed template that every user decorated item by item with a paid currency of acorns (dotori). A title bar; a left column with profile photo, mood line and friend list; in the centre the miniroom, a small isometric room of bought pixel furniture where a small pixel-style avatar (the minimi) lives; a right-hand menu of tabs; and a visitor counter. Selfies, diary entries, guestbook notes and wistful captions made it, in Korean press words, the nation's collective diary and photo album.

The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right.

1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.