Style combination · Contrasts
Kōwhaiwhai × Pacific Barkcloth Design
Curvilinear kōwhaiwhai and ruled, gridded Polynesian barkcloth belong to different peoples and grammars; keep them separate and credit each source.
Kōwhaiwhai flows in curvilinear koru bands while tapa is ruled into squares filled with angular repeats, a reminder that 'Pacific pattern' is not one style.
Mix them and make something Kōwhaiwhai Pacific Barkcloth Design
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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.
Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design
- Type from Pacific Barkcloth Design
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- Colour from Kōwhaiwhai
- Form from Kōwhaiwhai
- Composition from Kōwhaiwhai
- Surface from Pacific Barkcloth Design
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The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Pacific Barkcloth Design
Together
Permanent Marker, standing in for Freehand-painted numerals and capitals on ngatu, from length markers to commemorative inscriptions
Text · Kōwhaiwhai
Toi Māori, the visual arts of the tangata whenua of Aotearoa, of which kōwhaiwhai, the painted scroll patterns of paddles and meeting-house rafters, is the most graphic strand. Patterns are built from the koru (unfurling frond) and crescent forms in red ochre (kōkōwai), black and white, balancing positive and negative shapes in long mirrored bands, alongside carving (whakairo), tukutuku lattice panels and woven tāniko.
Archivo; Kōwhaiwhai used Whakarare and Painted and carved lettering in 19th-century meeting houses
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The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Kōwhaiwhai, with a counter-accent from Pacific Barkcloth Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design
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#f2efe8ground · 44% -
#141210ink · 17% -
#c46b2baccent · 22% -
#a3322aaccent · 17%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f2efe8;
--ink: #141210;
--accent-1: #c46b2b;
--accent-2: #a3322a;
--font-display: "Permanent Marker", cursive;
--font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design: Toi Māori is taonga: kōwhaiwhai patterns can belong to particular iwi and houses and carry whakapapa, and tā moko is personal and especially restricted. Work with Māori designers and iwi under tikanga, credit them, and do not graft koru onto letters or products as generic 'tribal' decoration.
Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design: Tapa is women's ceremonial wealth, made collectively and presented at weddings, funerals and the investiture of chiefly titles; particular motifs commemorate events, lineages and royalty, and some designs belong to families, villages or chiefly lines. Commission and pay tapa makers and their work groups (such as the koka'anga in Tonga), credit the island and the maker, and do not lift motifs from museum cloths onto products or treat Tongan, Samoan, Fijian and Hawaiian traditions as one interchangeable 'Polynesian' pattern.
04
The two styles
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More combinations
With Kōwhaiwhai
- Art Nouveau Pairs well · Both build on the living, curling stem; compare their curves to find a rhythm that is organic without being florid.
- International Typographic Style Contrasts · A rectilinear grid and neutral sans throw mirrored koru bands into relief, which suits bilingual institutional work in Aotearoa.
- Northwest Coast Formline Design Contrasts · Abstract koru bands and figurative formline crests are distinct Indigenous systems, not one 'tribal' look; study the difference and never blend them.
- Op Art Graphics Pairs well · Kōwhaiwhai figure-ground reversal reads as optical pattern, but Gordon Walters' koru paintings show the appropriation risk, so work with Māori artists.
- Uli & Nsibidi Line and Sign Tradition Contrasts · Both build from curving line and balance positive against negative space, but kōwhaiwhai mirrors koru in continuous bands along a rafter, while uli scatters single motifs asymmetrically over open skin, wall or paper.
- Torres Strait Islander Linocut Contrasts · Another Oceanian pattern tradition, but kōwhaiwhai paints symmetrical koru scrolls in red, black and white along rafters, while Torres Strait linocut carves hatching around narrative figures; never treat Māori and Torres Strait design as one 'Pacific' style.
- Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop) Contrasts · Polynesian Pop folded Māori carving into one generic 'Tiki'; Toi Māori is taonga tied to particular iwi, so keep it out of tiki pastiche and work with Māori designers when the subject is Aotearoa.
With Pacific Barkcloth Design
- Adinkra & Kente Symbol Systems Pairs well · Both are gridded ceremonial cloths of named motifs; borrow their shared square-by-square logic for a layout, while keeping each motif tied to its own culture and meaning.
- Risograph & Indie Print Culture Pairs well · Two earth-toned inks on cream stock and a slightly broken, rubbed impression give print work tapa's material warmth without copying its motifs.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · A ruled grid already underlies ngatu; set text in a neutral grotesque within the same squares for exhibition and institutional graphics made with tapa makers.
- Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop) Contrasts · Tiki menus borrowed tapa-like zigzag bands as mere borders; real ngatu, siapo and kapa are women's ceremonial wealth with named motifs, so set the two side by side to see what was flattened, and commission tapa makers rather than copying their patterns.