Style combination · Contrasts
DTC 'Blanding' × Spotify Duotone Identity
Pastel, quiet and symmetric against saturated, clashing and angled; a pointed tonal opposite.
Mix them and make something DTC 'Blanding' Spotify Duotone Identity
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 Spotify Duotone Identity
- Type from Spotify Duotone Identity
- Colour from Spotify Duotone Identity
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DTC 'Blanding' avoids complementary clash: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Form from DTC 'Blanding'
- 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.
Text · DTC 'Blanding'
The friendly, frictionless minimalism of 2010s direct-to-consumer start-ups, built for the phone screen, the Instagram feed and the unboxing. Lowercase geometric or neo-grotesque wordmarks, one muted signature colour such as millennial pink, sage or terracotta, seamless-backdrop product photography and chatty copy made mattresses, razors and suitcases look interchangeable, a sameness critics called 'blanding' before brands swung to colourful maximalism around 2021–2022.
Hanken Grotesk; DTC 'Blanding' used Circular and Graphik
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Spotify Duotone Identity, with a counter-accent from DTC 'Blanding'. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Spotify Duotone Identity
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#191414ground · 36% -
#ffffffink · 14% -
#450af5accent · 18% -
#d27c5daccent · 14% -
#ff4632accent · 10% -
#f2e3a8accent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #191414;
--ink: #ffffff;
--accent-1: #450af5;
--accent-2: #d27c5d;
--accent-3: #ff4632;
--accent-4: #f2e3a8;
--font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With DTC 'Blanding'
- Scandinavian Functionalism Pairs well · Shares a warm, domestic restraint; borrow Nordic materials and craft photography to give a pastel system more texture and credibility.
- 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.