Style combination · Contrasts

Newtro × Showa and Heisei Retro Revival

Both revive old everyday graphics, but newtro is Korean heritage-brand reissue with badge-led logic, while this is Japanese katakana-led kissaten and dagashi graphics in pastel spot colour.

From the research on Showa and Heisei Retro Revival (Japanese Packaging and Kissaten Graphics)

Mix them and make something Newtro Showa and Heisei Retro Revival

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Newtro, their arrangement from Newtro, the finish from Showa and Heisei Retro Revival. 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.

Newtro (Korean New-Retro) Showa and Heisei Retro Revival (Japanese Packaging and Kissaten Graphics)

Type from Showa and Heisei Retro Revival: Hand-lettering
Rounded sans
Colour from Newtro: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Newtro: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges
Composition from Newtro: Central symmetry
Isolated object
Surface from Showa and Heisei Retro Revival: Halftone & Ben-Day dots
Misregistration & overprint

The type

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

Display · Showa and Heisei Retro Revival

Souvenir

Zen Maru Gothic, standing in for Maru gothic (rounded gothic) display

Text · Showa and Heisei Retro Revival

A contemporary Japanese revival of mid-to-late twentieth-century everyday graphics: kissaten cafe menus and tableware, dagashi sweet packaging, reissued products and calendars. It reuses hand-lettered katakana, rounded display type, floral patterns and flat spot-colour figures, worn with faded ink, halftone and misregistration, to evoke warm, remembered ordinary life. Unlike newtro (Korean heritage-brand reissues), it is led by Japanese katakana lettering, kissaten props and a pale pastel spot-colour palette.

Zen Maru Gothic; Showa and Heisei Retro Revival used Hand-lettered katakana and menu lettering and Maru gothic (rounded gothic) display

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Newtro, with a counter-accent from Showa and Heisei Retro Revival. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Newtro (Korean New-Retro) Showa and Heisei Retro Revival (Japanese Packaging and Kissaten Graphics)

#f4ecd8 ground · 36%
#1c1c1c ink · 14%
#f0b929 accent · 18%
#d7322b accent · 14%
#1f58a8 accent · 10%
#7cc3e3 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4ecd8;
  --ink: #1c1c1c;
  --accent-1: #f0b929;
  --accent-2: #d7322b;
  --accent-3: #1f58a8;
  --accent-4: #7cc3e3;
  --font-display: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Newtro (Korean New-Retro): Newtro revives a firm's own archive: for any other client draw on that client's history, not Jinro's toad or Gompyo's bear, which their owners guard. In 2023 the first cans of 7Bräu's Daepyo Wheat Beer, which kept Gompyo's colour scheme and a bear, drew Daehan Flour Mills' warning that copying the brand's design could be unfair competition, and 7Bräu promised a redesign with a tiger. Keep Hangul and Hanja correct and legible, and do not swap in Japanese Shōwa-retro or colonial-era 'Gyeongseong' imagery: a 2018 JoongAng Ilbo column called restaurants that mix Japanese food with Gyeongseong nostalgia 'tasteless', since those who lived through the occupation remember it as 'shameful and painful'.