Style combination · Pairs well
De Stijl × Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
Dumbar's forerunner at Teldesign, the Mondriaan poster for the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (1971–72), photographed De Stijl's coloured bars standing in real space like an installation, and his De Stijl poster with Lex van Pieterson (1982) was a staged arrangement of objects, among them a portrait of Rietveld; lift the primaries and bars off the page, build them as a set and photograph it for the Dutch postmodern twist on the movement.
Mix them and make something De Stijl Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
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.
De Stijl Dutch Expressive Postmodernism (Studio Dumbar & Hard Werken)
- Type from Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
- Colour from De Stijl
- Form from De Stijl
- Composition from Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
- Surface from Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
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02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
Hello
Inter Tight, standing in for Grotesques sliced, rescaled and layered
Text · De Stijl
A Dutch movement formed around Theo van Doesburg's journal De Stijl and Piet Mondrian's Neoplasticism, which sought universal harmony through the most elementary means: horizontal and vertical lines, rectangles, the three primaries and black, white and grey. In typography it produced block-constructed letters and orthogonal, asymmetric layouts whose principles flowed directly into the Bauhaus and the New Typography.
Archivo; De Stijl used Theo van Doesburg's rectilinear alphabet and Vilmos Huszár's block-letter De Stijl masthead
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from De Stijl, with a counter-accent from Dutch Expressive Postmodernism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
De Stijl Dutch Expressive Postmodernism (Studio Dumbar & Hard Werken)
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#f5f3eeground · 36% -
#111111ink · 14% -
#f4c20daccent · 18% -
#e5007eaccent · 14% -
#d52b1eaccent · 10% -
#1f4ea1accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f5f3ee;
--ink: #111111;
--accent-1: #f4c20d;
--accent-2: #e5007e;
--accent-3: #d52b1e;
--accent-4: #1f4ea1;
--font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Dutch Expressive Postmodernism (Studio Dumbar & Hard Werken): The police logo and vehicle striping and the PTT and film-festival marks are live or protected identities: borrow the method (built sets, mismatched type, deconstructed modernist elements), never reproduce the Politie insignia or striping, which signal real police authority, or present a design as a Studio Dumbar or Hard Werken work.
04
The two styles
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More combinations
With De Stijl
- Memphis Design Contrasts · Memphis reuses the primaries with squiggles and irony; compare the two to decide whether geometry should be earnest or playful.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Drop one De Stijl primary field into a Swiss grid for structure with a jolt of colour.
- Psychedelic Poster Contrasts · Vibrating, melting colour against still primaries: contrast them to present order and ecstasy as opposite poles.
- Flat Design Pairs well · Flat UI colour blocking descends from De Stijl; use black separators and primary fields for bold, legible interfaces.
- Mechano-Faktura & Polish Constructivist Advertising Pairs well · Shared flat colour and orthogonal discipline; swap the Dutch primaries for red-black-white.
- NK Textilkammare Geometric Print (Astrid Sampe, Signerad Textil) Pairs well · Sampe's late-1940s fabrics followed Mondrian: take De Stijl's black lines and primary accents and turn them into an even, directionless repeat.
- Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography Contrasts · Same country, same years and the same rules and bars: De Stijl set them asymmetrically in primaries as pure abstraction, Wendingen piled them symmetrically into monumental, decorative frames; set one against the other to choose between open balance and a formal facade.
With Dutch Expressive Postmodernism
- Cranbrook & Deconstructivist Typography Contrasts · Its transatlantic contemporary: Katherine McCoy of Cranbrook co-organised the 1986 Chicago show of Dutch design. Cranbrook layers text to be read and argued over; the Dutch studios layer pictures, colour and staged depth to be enjoyed. Choose Cranbrook for theory-laden spreads and the Dutch idiom for posters that must play.
- Memphis Design Pairs well · A contemporary 1980s attack on good taste: set Memphis primitives, squiggles and patterned laminates inside a Dumbar-style photographed set for a poster with real shadows and clashing colour.
- Swiss Punk / New Wave Typography Contrasts · Basel's rebellion kept the grotesque and the halftone in an abstract grid; the Dutch one brings in figures, props, painting and photographed depth. Choose Basel New Wave for abstract type textures and the Dutch idiom when the poster needs objects and a stage.
- Total Design & Dutch Functionalism Contrasts · The foil it was 'anti' to: Total Design's visible grid, one cool sans and white space against Hard Werken's and Dumbar's mismatched type, crude assemblage and shrieking colour. The same 1986 exhibition set them up as the two poles of Dutch design; quote one exposed grid inside a staged-photo poster to show the argument.
- Punk & DIY Zine Pairs well · Hard Werken began as a DIY underground magazine; add punk's photocopied cut-and-paste to the Dutch idiom's offset colour for a rougher, more anti-professional edge.
- Hipgnosis Photographic Concept Sleeve Contrasts · Studio Dumbar also built scenes and photographed them, but filled the set with mismatched type and flat modernist shapes; Hipgnosis kept the lettering off the picture and made the scene look plausible. Choose between a visibly constructed set and a believable impossibility.