Style combination · Contrasts

Generative × NFT Profile-Picture Collections

Both generate variants by rule, but an identity varies abstract marks around a constant brand, while a PFP set varies a character's accessories so that each token is rare and ownable.

From the research on NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)

Mix them and make something Generative NFT Profile-Picture Collections

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Generative, their arrangement from NFT Profile-Picture Collections, the finish from Generative. 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.

Generative & Dynamic Identities NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)

Type from Generative: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Colour from NFT Profile-Picture Collections: Flat fields
Full polychrome
Form from Generative: Non-representational
Geometric primitives

NFT Profile-Picture Collections avoids non-representational: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from NFT Profile-Picture Collections: Isolated object
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Generative: Flat

The type

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

Display · Generative

Signal

Inter Tight, standing in for Neue Haas Grotesk (Whitney Museum, Experimental Jetset)

Text · NFT Profile-Picture Collections

Sets of thousands of avatar portraits that code assembles from one or two hundred hand-drawn traits, each sold as a token on a blockchain. Each image repeats one character in one pose on a flat coloured square, varied only by skin, eyes, mouth, headwear and accessories whose rarity drives the price. Begun with Larva Labs' 24×24-pixel CryptoPunks (2017) and booming with Yuga Labs' thick-outlined cartoon Bored Apes (2021), it made the social-media profile picture a badge of club membership and wealth.

Jost; NFT Profile-Picture Collections used Montserrat, the geometric sans of the CryptoPunks website and The current CryptoPunks wordmark (cryptopunks.app), a smooth sans whose C, t, P and u are built partly from square pixel blocks

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from NFT Profile-Picture Collections, with a counter-accent from Generative. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Generative & Dynamic Identities NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)

#adc9d6 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#8b5a2b accent · 18%
#0091ff accent · 14%
#ff3b30 accent · 10%
#00c389 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #adc9d6;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #8b5a2b;
  --accent-2: #0091ff;
  --accent-3: #ff3b30;
  --accent-4: #00c389;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes): Most collections were sold as speculative assets and lost most of their value after 2022 (the Bored Ape floor price fell by about 90% from its May 2022 peak by May 2024); draw your own characters and trait layers rather than imitating a collection's punks or apes, whose rights belong to their holders or rights owners, and do not present an avatar set as an investment. Do not make skin tone, gender or ethnic dress a rarity tier: a study of the full CryptoPunks sales history finds that punks with black and brown skin sell for less than light-skinned ones, a gap their other facial features do not explain (Hubbard and LaFave, Journal of Cultural Economics, 2025), and the Bored Apes have been accused of racism, which their founders deny (Anti-Defamation League researchers called the charge doubtful but said traits such as 'Hip-Hop' can be seen as problematic). Keep identity traits evenly distributed, and keep racially or culturally coded costume off animal characters.