minä perhonen × Muji No-Brand Design

Plain everyday goods give the quiet ground that lets small hand-drawn pattern read.

From the research on minä perhonen (Hand-Drawn Textile Graphics, Akira Minagawa)

Mix them and make something minä perhonen Muji No-Brand Design

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from minä perhonen, their arrangement from minä perhonen, the finish from Muji No-Brand Design. 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.

minä perhonen (Hand-Drawn Textile Graphics, Akira Minagawa) Muji No-Brand Design (Mujirushi Ryohin)

Type from Muji No-Brand Design: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Flush left, ragged right
Colour from minä perhonen: Limited spot colours
Analogous harmony
Form from minä perhonen: Biomorphic curves
Stylised figuration
Composition from minä perhonen: All-over field
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Muji No-Brand Design: Paper & letterpress bite
Flat

The type

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

Display · Muji No-Brand Design

Calm

Zen Kaku Gothic New, standing in for Japanese gothic (kaku gothic) sans-serif, the plain Japanese text tradition for labels and signage

Text · minä perhonen

A Tokyo label's textile graphics in which small hand-drawn birds, butterflies, forests and rings are repeated in loose, quiet rows, often embroidered so the stitching stays visible. It takes up the Nordic everyday ideal of Finnish bold print but reverses its scale: small embroidered hand marks, delicate and densely repeated, against one huge flat screen-printed motif in strong colour. The lineage from Finnish bold print is loose; the craft is Japanese and hand-made.

Zen Maru Gothic; minä perhonen used Lowercase sans-serif wordmark and No signature typeface; the pattern, not the type, carries the style

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from minä perhonen, with a counter-accent from Muji No-Brand Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

minä perhonen (Hand-Drawn Textile Graphics, Akira Minagawa) Muji No-Brand Design (Mujirushi Ryohin)

#f1ece2 ground · 36%
#3f4a5a ink · 14%
#c98f86 accent · 18%
#d7261e accent · 14%
#d9cfc0 accent · 10%
#9aa7a0 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1ece2;
  --ink: #3f4a5a;
  --accent-1: #c98f86;
  --accent-2: #d7261e;
  --accent-3: #d9cfc0;
  --accent-4: #9aa7a0;
  --font-display: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
}

The two styles

An all-over pattern on a textured cream background combines small figures in sage-green dresses, dark blue birds, pink butterflies, leafy stems, flowers, and dotted green rings. Small blue lettering near the upper right reads “mori day.”

1995–present · East Asia, Northern Europe minä perhonen (Hand-Drawn Textile Graphics, Akira Minagawa) A Tokyo label's textile graphics in which small hand-drawn birds, butterflies, forests and rings are repeated in loose, quiet rows, often embroidered so the stitching stays visible. It takes up the Nordic everyday ideal of Finnish bold print but reverses its scale: small embroidered hand marks, delicate and densely repeated, against one huge flat screen-printed motif in strong colour. The lineage from Finnish bold print is loose; the craft is Japanese and hand-made.

1980–present · East Asia, Global / networked Muji No-Brand Design (Mujirushi Ryohin) A house style that sells goods by withholding branding: clear cellophane and plain brown paper, plain labels stating the item and its price, and products centred in wide margins. Begun in Tokyo in 1980 under Ikko Tanaka, it makes calm a design method rather than a mood; Kenya Hara, art director since 2001, later articulated this through his idea of emptiness in his writing.

More combinations

With minä perhonen

With Muji No-Brand Design

Every style combination