Style combination · Contrasts

Guochao × Indian Pop-Kitsch Design

China's guochao redraws imperial and auspicious motifs in palace red and gold with patriotic pride; desi kitsch mines the everyday street in neon pink and taxi yellow with irony, and by 2010 Open judged that 'in the race to be desi, we ended up being too desi'.

From the research on Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)

Mix them and make something Guochao Indian Pop-Kitsch Design

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design, their arrangement from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design, the finish from Guochao. 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.

Guochao (China-Chic National Trend) Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)

Type from Guochao: Brush & pen calligraphy
Type as image
Colour from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design: Full polychrome
Flat fields
Form from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design: Stylised figuration
Folk & sacred symbols
Composition from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design: Isolated object
All-over field
Surface from Guochao: Skeuomorphic material
Flat

The type

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

Display · Guochao

Souvenir

Kaushan Script, standing in for Bold brush calligraphy (kaishu and xingshu) for hero characters

Text · Indian Pop-Kitsch Design

Urban Indian gift and T-shirt design from the late 1990s into the 2010s that recasts the street and bazaar as ironic, affectionate icons: truck tails and 'Horn OK Please', auto-rickshaws, Ambassadors and Chetaks, cutting chai, old Bollywood stills and dialogues, Bhagat Singh in place of Che. Labels such as Happily Unmarried, Playclan, 1469 and Chumbak redrew them as flat, saturated graphics with Hinglish puns and painted-sign lettering on mugs, magnets and notebooks, 'modern yet at the same time Indian'.

Space Grotesk; Indian Pop-Kitsch Design used Truck painters' shaded block capitals for slogans such as 'Horn OK Please', which Avid Learning's press release for the 2019 'Kitsch and the City' panel at NGMA Mumbai named among Mumbai's kitsch: 'the letters "Horn Ok Please" in block fonts' and Drawn Bollywood title lettering and quoted film dialogue, as in Happily Unmarried's 'Kya Tumney Aaj Phir Sharab Pee Hai' series

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design, with a counter-accent from Guochao. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Guochao (China-Chic National Trend) Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)

#ffcc00 ground · 36%
#151515 ink · 14%
#f26522 accent · 18%
#e3b33b accent · 14%
#ec1e79 accent · 10%
#b8232f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffcc00;
  --ink: #151515;
  --accent-1: #f26522;
  --accent-2: #e3b33b;
  --accent-3: #ec1e79;
  --accent-4: #b8232f;
  --font-display: "Kaushan Script", cursive;
  --font-text: "Space Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Guochao (China-Chic National Trend): Guochao often lifts ethnic-minority crafts (Miao silverwork and embroidery, Dai and Mongolian motifs) and intangible-heritage techniques as packaging finishes. Credit and pay the communities and craftspeople whose patterns are used, commission or collaborate with practitioners rather than copying motifs, and remember that dragons, imperial yellow and national symbols carry political as well as decorative meaning.

Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch): The style quotes living crafts and sacred images: commission, credit and pay truck, sign and hoarding painters rather than lifting their panels, and do not put deities, the Om, the Khanda or Qur'anic phrases on footwear, underwear, ashtrays or toilet jokes. Check Hindi and Punjabi puns before printing, since several hits of the trend ('KLPD', 'Bosedk') are vulgar double entendres, and keep away from divisive political figures (1469 turned down demands for Bhindranwale T-shirts). Bhagat Singh is claimed by rival political camps (the farmers' movement, Communists, Khalistanis, the AAP and other parties), so check how a portrait tee will read before printing it. Laugh with the vernacular, not at the drivers, rickshaw pullers and chai sellers whose working lives supply the icons.

The two styles

An ornate red, gold and green label features large gold Chinese characters in a central cartouche, flanked by two white cranes with raised wings. Green mountains, a golden sun, curling clouds and flowering branches fill the surrounding space inside elaborate decorative borders.

2018–present · East Asia Guochao (China-Chic National Trend) A Chinese branding and fashion trend, usually dated from Li-Ning's 'China Li-Ning' show at New York Fashion Week in February 2018, that redraws heritage motifs as finishes for sneakers, apparel, cosmetics and museum merchandise. Huge brush or block characters become the picture, framed like seals and crossed with streetwear lockups, in palace red, imperial yellow, jade and gold with auspicious clouds, waves, dragons and lotus; the tone is nostalgic, premium and openly patriotic. 1997–present · South Asia Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch) Urban Indian gift and T-shirt design from the late 1990s into the 2010s that recasts the street and bazaar as ironic, affectionate icons: truck tails and 'Horn OK Please', auto-rickshaws, Ambassadors and Chetaks, cutting chai, old Bollywood stills and dialogues, Bhagat Singh in place of Che. Labels such as Happily Unmarried, Playclan, 1469 and Chumbak redrew them as flat, saturated graphics with Hinglish puns and painted-sign lettering on mugs, magnets and notebooks, 'modern yet at the same time Indian'.