Stylogeny combining Japanese Postwar Modernism × Japonisme

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Style combination · Pairs well

Japanese Postwar Modernism × Japonisme

Combine Japonisme's cropped figures with postwar Japanese emblem-and-field posters to bridge two centuries of East–West exchange.

From the research on Japonisme

Mix them and make something Japanese Postwar Modernism Japonisme

QuietJapanese Postwar × Japonisme1950 · 1860
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Japonisme, their arrangement from Japanese Postwar Modernism, the finish from Japonisme. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Japanese Postwar Modernism Japonisme

Type from Japanese Postwar Modernism
Colour from Japanese Postwar Modernism
Form from Japonisme
Composition from Japanese Postwar Modernism
Surface from Japonisme

02

The type

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

Display · Japanese Postwar Modernism

Quiet

Zen Kaku Gothic New, standing in for Gothic (kaku gothic Japanese sans)

Text · Japonisme

The Western absorption of Japanese woodblock prints, textiles and crafts after Japan reopened to trade in the 1850s. Artists and designers borrowed ukiyo-e's flat colour, bold contours, off-centre and cropped compositions, high viewpoints and crest-like emblems; these devices dissolved academic perspective and set the visual grammar of the modern poster and of Art Nouveau.

Hanken Grotesk; Japonisme used Auriol and Brush-drawn display lettering imitating Japanese calligraphy

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Japanese Postwar Modernism, with a counter-accent from Japonisme. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Japanese Postwar Modernism Japonisme

  • #f4f1ea ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #d7261e accent · 18%
  • #c8a24a accent · 14%
  • #1d3c78 accent · 10%
  • #8fa58a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #d7261e;
  --accent-2: #c8a24a;
  --accent-3: #1d3c78;
  --accent-4: #8fa58a;
  --font-display: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

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The two styles

A large red sun sits above and behind a black triangular mountain with a gold tip on an off-white background. Bold black characters reading “太陽” appear in the upper-left corner. 1950–1990 · East Asia Japanese Postwar Modernism Building on the New Typography that Hiromu Hara and the Nippon Kobo circle had absorbed in the 1930s, Japan's postwar graphic designers fused the grid, sans-serif and objective photography of European modernism with indigenous traditions of family crests (kamon), asymmetry and charged emptiness (ma). From the Graphic '55 exhibition and the Nippon Design Center to Yusaku Kamekura's Tokyo 1964 Olympic posters, it produced bold emblematic symbols, luminous flat colour fields and photography of startling precision. A woman in a blue floral kimono with an orange sash stands at a wooden railing overlooking a winding river, lily pads, distant hills and Japanese-style buildings. Red flowering branches hang overhead, and “RIVIÈRE” appears across the upper right. 1860–1910 · Western Europe, North America, Central Europe Japonisme The Western absorption of Japanese woodblock prints, textiles and crafts after Japan reopened to trade in the 1850s. Artists and designers borrowed ukiyo-e's flat colour, bold contours, off-centre and cropped compositions, high viewpoints and crest-like emblems; these devices dissolved academic perspective and set the visual grammar of the modern poster and of Art Nouveau.

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More combinations

With Japanese Postwar Modernism

All 26 combinations with Japanese Postwar Modernism

With Japonisme

All 10 combinations with Japonisme

Every style combination