Stylogeny combining Kōwhaiwhai × Tiki Pop

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Style combination · Contrasts

Kōwhaiwhai × Tiki Pop

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.

From the research on Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop)

Mix them and make something Kōwhaiwhai Tiki Pop

HelloKōwhaiwhai × Tiki Pop1500 · 1934
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Kōwhaiwhai, their arrangement from Kōwhaiwhai, the finish from Tiki Pop. 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.

Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop)

Type from Tiki Pop
Colour from Kōwhaiwhai
Form from Kōwhaiwhai
Composition from Kōwhaiwhai
Surface from Tiki Pop

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The type

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

Display · Tiki Pop

Hello

Yellowtail, standing in for Casual brush script for venue names, as on the Waikiki Room menu at the Pick-Nicollet Hotel

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 Tiki Pop. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop)

  • #f2efe8 ground · 36%
  • #141210 ink · 14%
  • #c46b2b accent · 18%
  • #a3322a accent · 14%
  • #2a9d8f accent · 10%
  • #6b4423 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2efe8;
  --ink: #141210;
  --accent-1: #c46b2b;
  --accent-2: #a3322a;
  --accent-3: #2a9d8f;
  --accent-4: #6b4423;
  --font-display: "Yellowtail", 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.

Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop): Tiki Pop is an outsider's pastiche built from sacred things: Polynesian wood images such as a Mangarevan tiki were carved to hold the mana of deities and stood on marae, and Hawaiian ki'i, Māori and Marquesan tiki belong to particular peoples, yet the style fused them into one grinning bar mascot and paired it with topless 'wahine' and 'savage' jokes, which Pacific artists such as Dan Taulapapa McMullin ('Tiki Manifesto') describe as erasure. Quote it as mid-century American commercial design, not as Polynesian art: invent your own non-sacred mascot rather than copying a named deity or museum carving, drop the sexualised island women and 'cannibal' caricature, do not use tā moko or Hawaiian words as decoration, and commission Pacific Islander artists when the subject is the Pacific itself.

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The two styles

1500–present · Oceania Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design 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. A grinning wooden tiki figure holds a coconut cocktail beneath bamboo-style lettering reading “EMBER ISLE.” Flaming torches, tropical foliage, orange flowers, a volcano, and a moonlit sea surround it inside an ornate geometric border. 1934–present · North America Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop) The mainland American fantasy of the South Seas, begun by Don the Beachcomber's Hollywood bar (about 1934) and Trader Vic's in Oakland and at its height in the Polynesian restaurants of the 1950s and 60s. Its first emblem was the idealised island woman, sometimes drawn bare-breasted; from the mid-1950s a composite carved 'Tiki', fused from Hawaiian, Marquesan, Māori, Rapa Nui and New Guinea sources, took over as logo, menu icon, matchbook and mug among bamboo lettering and tapa-like borders. Written off as kitsch by the 1970s, it has been revived since the late 1990s.

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More combinations

With Kōwhaiwhai

With Tiki Pop

Every style combination