Stylogeny combining Memphis Design × Ma

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Style combination · Contrasts

Memphis Design × Ma

Memphis is loud, synthetic and glossy; set one Memphis squiggle on a vast wabi ground only if you want deliberate friction.

From the research on Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics

Mix them and make something Memphis Design Ma

Yay!Memphis Design × Ma1981 · 1500
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Memphis Design, their arrangement from Ma, the finish from Ma. 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 Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics

Type from Memphis Design
Colour from Memphis Design

Ma avoids full polychrome: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Form from Memphis Design
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 · Memphis Design

Yay!

Jost, standing in for Futura

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 Memphis Design, with a counter-accent from Ma. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Memphis Design Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics

  • #ffd23f ground · 36%
  • #111111 ink · 14%
  • #ff5a36 accent · 18%
  • #7d4e3a accent · 14%
  • #2ec4b6 accent · 10%
  • #b9a88a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffd23f;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #ff5a36;
  --accent-2: #7d4e3a;
  --accent-3: #2ec4b6;
  --accent-4: #b9a88a;
  --font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", 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. A cream, fibrous-paper background holds the brush-written character 間 with “M a” below it. A large, rough circular brushstroke in olive, brown and ochre is cropped along the right edge, with scattered paint droplets and a small horizontal bar near the bottom. 1500–present · East Asia Ma & Wabi-sabi Aesthetics 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'.

05

More combinations

With Memphis Design

All 17 combinations with Memphis Design

With Ma

All 26 combinations with Ma

Every style combination