Stylogeny combining Memphis Design × Supergraphics

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Style combination · Pairs well

Memphis Design × Supergraphics

Its clashing colour and pattern can energise a painted wall, though it adds ornament that supergraphics usually leaves out. Memphis dates from 1981, so it is a later pairing, not an influence.

From the research on Supergraphics

Mix them and make something Memphis Design Supergraphics

WowMemphis Design × Supergraphics1981 · 1966
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Memphis Design, their arrangement from Supergraphics, the finish from Memphis Design. 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.

Memphis Design Supergraphics

Type from Supergraphics
Colour from Memphis Design
Form from Memphis Design
Composition from Supergraphics
Surface from Memphis Design

02

The type

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

Display · Supergraphics

Wow

Jost, standing in for Futura (typical, not documented)

Text · Supergraphics

Oversized stripes, numerals, letters and abstract shapes painted directly onto walls, floors and ceilings, wrapping across architectural planes so that a room reads larger, deeper or differently shaped. It took Swiss-trained flat colour and sans-serif type off the page and made the graphic the surface of the building. It later became a standard tool of environmental graphic design for wayfinding and branding.

Jost; Supergraphics used Helvetica and Univers

03

The colours

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

Memphis Design Supergraphics

  • #ffd23f ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #ff5a36 accent · 18%
  • #2ec4b6 accent · 14%
  • #0b5cad accent · 10%
  • #f7a1c4 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffd23f;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #ff5a36;
  --accent-2: #2ec4b6;
  --accent-3: #0b5cad;
  --accent-4: #f7a1c4;
  --font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

A dense geometric pattern on a pink background combines turquoise polka-dot triangles, yellow squares with black dashes, blue circles with yellow sprinkles, orange-red zigzags, and scattered squiggles and small shapes. Bold black offset shapes give many motifs a shadowed, layered appearance. 1981–1988 · Southern Europe Memphis Design The Milan collective founded by Ettore Sottsass, whose furniture, laminates and objects (first shown in September 1981) became a graphic language of their own. Clashing colours, speckles, squiggles, zigzags and primitive geometric shapes were combined with deliberate bad taste, mocking modernist good form while quoting 1950s kitsch, Pop and Art Deco. Huge black letters spelling “MOVE” fill a slanted cream band across a geometric poster. Red, blue, yellow and teal shapes surround the lettering, with a large yellow circle above, three cream dots at upper right and diagonal blue-and-cream stripes below. 1966–2026 · North America Supergraphics Oversized stripes, numerals, letters and abstract shapes painted directly onto walls, floors and ceilings, wrapping across architectural planes so that a room reads larger, deeper or differently shaped. It took Swiss-trained flat colour and sans-serif type off the page and made the graphic the surface of the building. It later became a standard tool of environmental graphic design for wayfinding and branding.

05

More combinations

With Memphis Design

All 17 combinations with Memphis Design

With Supergraphics

Every style combination