Style combination · Pairs well
DTC 'Blanding' × Scandinavian Functionalism
Shares a warm, domestic restraint; borrow Nordic materials and craft photography to give a pastel system more texture and credibility.
Mix them and make something DTC 'Blanding' Scandinavian Functionalism
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.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Scandinavian Functionalism
- Type from DTC 'Blanding'
- Colour from Scandinavian Functionalism
- Form from Scandinavian Functionalism
- Composition from DTC 'Blanding'
- Surface from DTC 'Blanding'
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · DTC 'Blanding'
Together
Hanken Grotesk, standing in for Circular (Laurenz Brunner, Lineto, 2013)
Text · Scandinavian Functionalism
Nordic functionalism (funkis) arrived in graphic form with Sigurd Lewerentz's posters and winged emblem for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition. It adapted Bauhaus rationalism to a social-democratic ideal of beautiful everyday things for everyone. Its graphic language is modernism with warmth: clear sans-serif or humane serif type, generous space, friendly simplified symbols and colours taken from nature, applied to public services, consumer goods and national identities.
Jost; Scandinavian Functionalism used Futura and Berling Antikva
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Scandinavian Functionalism, with a counter-accent from DTC 'Blanding'. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Scandinavian Functionalism
-
#f6f3ecground · 36% -
#1f2a37ink · 14% -
#e3b53aaccent · 18% -
#d27c5daccent · 14% -
#a63a2aaccent · 10% -
#f4cfc8accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f6f3ec;
--ink: #1f2a37;
--accent-1: #e3b53a;
--accent-2: #d27c5d;
--accent-3: #a63a2a;
--accent-4: #f4cfc8;
--font-display: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With DTC 'Blanding'
- Neo-Brutalism Contrasts · The post-blanding swing: thick outlines, clashing brights and hard shadows are the quickest way out of pastel sameness.
- Neoclassical Book Typography Contrasts · Luxury's other reduction: a single Didone wordmark signals heritage where the lowercase sans signals approachability.
- Corporate Memphis Pairs well · Its illustration-led sibling; add a few flat vector figures when seamless-backdrop photography alone feels too cold.
- Minimalist Graphic Design Contrasts · Its austere parent: swap pastel and chatty copy back to monochrome and silence when a brand needs authority rather than friendliness.
- Natural Wine Label Art Contrasts · Blanding sells a frictionless, agency-made brand in lowercase geometric sans and pastels; the natural wine label sells a person through an untrained drawing. Use the contrast to decide whether a product should feel designed or made.
- Hipster Artisanal Revival Contrasts · Where this dressed new firms as old ones, blanding dressed them as frictionless and new, with lowercase geometric sans, pastels and white space; set the two side by side to place a brand between heritage and novelty.
- Guochao (China-Chic National Trend) Contrasts · Western direct-to-consumer brands strip identity to pastel sans-serif minimalism; guochao sells ornament and heritage instead, so use one to test the other.
- Muji No-Brand Design (Mujirushi Ryohin) Contrasts · Shares the plain sans and isolated product but replaces its friendly pastel persona and funded brand voice with anonymity.
With Scandinavian Functionalism
- Minimalist Graphic Design Pairs well · Add natural colour and rounded forms to minimalist reduction for calm, approachable consumer branding.
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Contrasts · The crowded Victorian handbill is what funkis cleared away; quote one for a heritage-versus-modern contrast.
- Corporate Memphis Contrasts · Both aim for friendliness, but Corporate Memphis shouts; use Nordic restraint to get warmth from colour and space instead of rubbery figures.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Warm a Swiss grid with Nordic colour and one simple, friendly symbol to keep order without coldness.
- NK Textilkammare Geometric Print (Astrid Sampe, Signerad Textil) Pairs well · The parent language: a calm functionalist layout of type and white space with one band of NK-style striped cloth as its only ornament.
- Moomin Graphics (Tove Jansson's Pen-Drawn World and its Licensed Afterlife) Pairs well · The Teema mug is the meeting point: a plain functional Nordic shape carrying one warm hand drawing.
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Pairs well · The same Nordic ideal of good everyday things, turned up loud; set one Marimekko-scale print against a calm funkis layout with a light ground and a plain sans so the pattern carries all the colour.
- Josef Frank and Svenskt Tenn Botanical Prints Contrasts · Frank's prints were his answer to functionalist austerity in the same Swedish rooms: use a calm functionalist layout and let one Frank-style print be its only ornament.