Style combination · Pairs well
Japanese Postwar Modernism × Ma
Use a modernist grid but leave whole modules empty, the way Tanaka and Hara let ma structure the page.
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.
Japanese Postwar Modernism Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics
- Type from Japanese Postwar Modernism
- Colour from Japanese Postwar Modernism
- Form from Japanese Postwar Modernism
- Composition from Ma
- Surface from Ma
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Japanese Postwar Modernism
Tide
Zen Kaku Gothic New, standing in for Gothic (kaku gothic Japanese sans)
Text · Ma
A Japanese aesthetic rooted in Zen and the wabi tea ceremony that prizes austerity, imperfection, impermanence and the charged interval (ma) between things. In graphic design it appears as vast empty grounds, a single off-centre element, muted natural colours, visible material texture and the unrepeatable brush mark, from ink painting to Muji's 'emptiness'.
Shippori Mincho; Ma used Bokuseki and Sōsho cursive kana and kanji
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Japanese Postwar Modernism, with a counter-accent from Ma. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Japanese Postwar Modernism Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics
-
#f4f1eaground · 36% -
#111111ink · 14% -
#d7261eaccent · 18% -
#7d4e3aaccent · 14% -
#c8a24aaccent · 10% -
#b9a88aaccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f4f1ea;
--ink: #111111;
--accent-1: #d7261e;
--accent-2: #7d4e3a;
--accent-3: #c8a24a;
--accent-4: #b9a88a;
--font-display: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Japanese Postwar Modernism
- Angura Theatre Poster Contrasts · Tadanori Yokoo's angura theatre posters broke with this school; set one beside a Kamekura poster to calibrate restraint against overload.
- Kawaii Design Contrasts · Kawaii shows the soft, crowded face of Japanese visual culture; use the contrast to tune a brand between gravitas and charm.
- Minimalist Graphic Design Pairs well · Muji-era minimalism grew from this school; enlarge the empty field further and reduce the emblem to a whisper.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Graft a single emblematic disc or crest onto a Swiss grid to add focus and warmth without breaking its order.
- Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism Pairs well · Take its single emblem on an empty field, then add a bilingual Chinese–English lockup and one ink stroke to move the poster from Tokyo to Hong Kong.
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Pairs well · Japanese postwar emblematic colour fields share the reduction of nature to a few flat silhouettes, and two of Marimekko's leading designers, Katsuji Wakisaka and Fujiwo Ishimoto, came from Japan; pair one Japanese-style emblem with a Marimekko-scale repeat for a calm, nature-led identity.
- Yuru-chara (Japanese Local Mascot Design) Contrasts · Postwar Japanese identities give institutions abstract, grid-built marks; a yuru-chara gives a prefecture a face, a name and a body that walks into festivals and shakes hands.
- Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration Contrasts · Postwar modernism replaced this sentimental figure with emblems and empty fields; set one against the other to calibrate warmth against austerity.
With Ma
- Minimalist Graphic Design Pairs well · Add one rough material or brush mark to a minimalist layout so its emptiness feels lived-in rather than sterile.
- Memphis Design Contrasts · Memphis is loud, synthetic and glossy; set one Memphis squiggle on a vast wabi ground only if you want deliberate friction.
- Scandinavian Functionalism Pairs well · Both prize natural materials and restraint; combine Nordic clarity with wabi irregularity for warm, quiet identities.
- Uli & Nsibidi Line and Sign Tradition Pairs well · Both make the empty interval carry meaning and place a few elements off-centre in earth colours; uli supplies a living line and named signs where wabi-sabi supplies texture and a single mark.
- Slow-Living Editorial (the Kinfolk Look) Pairs well · Leonard Koren, author of the 1994 book on wabi-sabi for designers, joined Kinfolk's editorial board in 2016; add a cracked bowl, raw linen or an off-centre object on a bare ground to make the calm less styled and more lived-in.
- Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi) Pairs well · Give one brushed word a wide, quiet field of paper-toned space so its dry streaks and pooled ink read as the whole design.
- Rinpa & Saga-bon Contrasts · Both come from Kyoto's tea culture (Kōetsu also made Raku tea bowls), but wabi-sabi wants rough clay and empty paper where Rinpa wants gold leaf and malachite; one bare field can serve either, so choose the material that fills it.
- Supergraphics Contrasts · Quiet, unfinished interiors against loud, total colour make a deliberate counterweight in a mixed scheme.