Style combination · Pairs well

Memphis Design × Vaporwave

Memphis terrazzo, squiggles and pastel laminates ground vaporwave's busts and grids in genuine 1980s decorative language.

From the research on Vaporwave

Mix them and make something Memphis Design Vaporwave

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Memphis Design, their arrangement from Vaporwave, the finish from Vaporwave. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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 Vaporwave

Type from Vaporwave: Wide letterspacing
Eclectic mixing
Colour from Memphis Design: Complementary clash
Full polychrome
Form from Memphis Design: Geometric primitives
Squiggles & confetti
Composition from Vaporwave: Collage & layering
Central symmetry
Surface from Vaporwave: Glitch
Chrome & 3D render

The type

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

Display · Vaporwave

Fine

Syncopate, standing in for Full-width Latin text (ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ)

Text · 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.

Jost; Memphis Design used Futura and ITC Avant Garde Gothic

The colours

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

Memphis Design Vaporwave

#ffd23f ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#ff5a36 accent · 18%
#01cdfe accent · 14%
#2ec4b6 accent · 10%
#b967ff accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffd23f;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #ff5a36;
  --accent-2: #01cdfe;
  --accent-3: #2ec4b6;
  --accent-4: #b967ff;
  --font-display: "Syncopate", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

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.

A large classical sculpted head rises from a turquoise swimming pool beneath a striped yellow-pink sun, surrounded by palm trees, waterfalls, city buildings and tropical foliage. Floating computer windows, a dolphin, cherry blossoms, a compact disc and a wireframe globe fill the pink-and-purple sky beneath the title “DREAM POOL.”

2011–2017 · Global / networked, North America Vaporwave An internet-born microgenre and visual aesthetic that remixes the debris of late-20th-century consumer culture (Windows 95 dialogs, classical busts, palm trees, mall interiors, Japanese text, early 3D renders) in pastel pinks and cyans. Emerging around 2011 from records by James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Vektroid, it is at once nostalgic homage and deadpan critique of corporate optimism.

More combinations

With Memphis Design

All 17 combinations with Memphis Design

With Vaporwave

All 19 combinations with Vaporwave

Every style combination