Stylogeny combining Itasha × Jeepney Art

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Style combination · Contrasts

Itasha × Jeepney Art

Both cover a vehicle in saturated colour, figures and emblems, but a jeepney is a passenger vehicle painted by hired sign painters with chrome, scripts and folk symbols, while an itasha is a private car wearing one fan's printed characters; borrow the jeepney's chrome and lettering only to show what itasha leaves out.

From the research on Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics)

Mix them and make something Itasha Jeepney Art

OursItasha × Jeepney Art2005 · 1946
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Itasha, their arrangement from Itasha, the finish from Jeepney Art. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics) Jeepney Art

Type from Jeepney Art
Colour from Itasha
Form from Itasha
Composition from Itasha
Surface from Jeepney Art

02

The type

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

Display · Jeepney Art

Ours

Yellowtail, standing in for Flowing brush scripts for names

Text · Itasha

Private cars, motorbikes and bicycles that Japanese fans of anime, manga and games cover with their favourite characters, named by the mid-2000s with the self-mocking word itasha, 'painful car'. Printed or cut vinyl, designed panel by panel, puts a large character on the bonnet and each flank, against the car's own paint or in a full wrap, with the series logo and parody racing decals. Owners show them at Comic Market car parks, in Akihabara and at meets of up to about 1,000 cars.

Zen Kaku Gothic New; Itasha used Series title logos reproduced as decals from the anime's or game's own artwork, such as the 'HARUHI ISM' logo of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the most common design among the itasha at Comic Market 71 (ASCII.jp, 3 January 2007) and Parody tuning and sponsor logotypes that keep a real brand's letterforms but change its words

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Itasha, with a counter-accent from Jeepney Art. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics) Jeepney Art

  • #f4f5f7 ground · 36%
  • #16161d ink · 14%
  • #ffd84a accent · 18%
  • #ce1126 accent · 14%
  • #2f6fde accent · 10%
  • #0038a8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f5f7;
  --ink: #16161d;
  --accent-1: #ffd84a;
  --accent-2: #ce1126;
  --accent-3: #2f6fde;
  --accent-4: #0038a8;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", cursive;
  --font-text: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics): Itasha is a living fan community, and its own self-mocking name is not an invitation to sneer at owners, whose cars have been vandalised (the Japanese Wikipedia records 'itasha-gari', itasha hunting) and who have courted goodwill with tidy meets and even traffic-safety prayers at Kawasaki Daishi (Web Japan, 2019). The characters belong to publishers and studios: the Japanese Wikipedia notes that most itasha are made without licences and tolerated rather than approved, and AUTOCAR Japan (2020) reports that very few makers hold official permission, while a specialist shop reports more than 150 officially licensed works and calls licensing standard practice for reputable makers (Kuruma News, 2018), so design original characters or secure the rights rather than copying key art. Some itasha carry characters from adult (eroge) games (English Wikipedia), and the Japanese Wikipedia notes that such wraps may breach youth-protection ordinances, while local outdoor-advertising and landscape ordinances can apply to any vehicle wrap; stickers on the windscreen can break road traffic law and fail inspection (Kuruma News, 2019).

04

The two styles

A brightly coloured anime-style poster features a winking, pink-haired girl making a peace sign above a compact car covered in matching character graphics. Large “Star Drive” lettering overlaps a waterfront city scene filled with cherry blossoms, stars, rabbit mascots and a Ferris wheel. 2005–present · East Asia Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics) Private cars, motorbikes and bicycles that Japanese fans of anime, manga and games cover with their favourite characters, named by the mid-2000s with the self-mocking word itasha, 'painful car'. Printed or cut vinyl, designed panel by panel, puts a large character on the bonnet and each flank, against the car's own paint or in a full wrap, with the series logo and parody racing decals. Owners show them at Comic Market car parks, in Akihabara and at meets of up to about 1,000 cars. An ornate rectangular sign reads “BAYANI” in huge silver, yellow and red shaded letters. Mirrored rearing white horses, a radiant sun, gold stars, tropical mountain-and-water scenes and red hibiscus flowers surround the lettering within colorful curling borders. 1946–present · Southeast Asia Jeepney Art The decoration of the Philippine jeepney, the shared taxi built from surplus US Army jeeps after 1945 and later from locally fabricated stainless-steel bodies by firms such as Sarao and Francisco Motors. Owners turn each vehicle into a rolling signboard of airbrushed murals, chrome horses and trim, pinstripes, saints, cartoon heroes, family names and route lettering, competing for passengers in Manila traffic.

05

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With Jeepney Art

Every style combination