Style combination · Contrasts

Newtro × Synthwave

Synthwave imagines an eighties that never shipped, in neon gradients; newtro reprints packaging that actually sat on Korean shelves, in flat spot colours.

From the research on Newtro (Korean New-Retro)

Mix them and make something Newtro Synthwave

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Newtro, their arrangement from Synthwave, the finish from Synthwave. 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) Synthwave / Outrun

Type from Newtro: Hand-lettering
Eclectic mixing
Colour from Newtro: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Newtro: Stylised figuration
Emblems & badges
Composition from Synthwave: Central symmetry
Illusion of depth
Surface from Synthwave: Chrome & 3D render
Glitch

Newtro avoids chrome & 3d render and glitch: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

The type

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

Display · Newtro

Souvenir

Kaushan Script, standing in for Woowa Brothers' Euljiro (2019) and Euljiro 10 Years Later (2020), free Hangul fonts drawn from Euljiro signboard brush lettering

Text · Synthwave

The retro-futurist look of synthwave music: a 1980s revival that grew from mid-2000s French electro and online synth scenes, took its other name from Sega's arcade racer Out Run (1986) and reached the mainstream with Drive (2011). Its register runs from the brooding night drives of Kavinsky and Hotline Miami to the affectionate parody of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Kung Fury. The visuals, settled around 2010–2013, recall the era's film posters, arcades and VHS: a neon grid running to a banded setting sun, chrome logotypes and hot-pink script, palms and sports cars at night, tape noise.

VT323; Synthwave used Mistral (Roger Excoffon, Fonderie Olive, 1953), the brush script set in hot pink for the Drive poster title and Custom chrome-bevelled, airbrushed logotypes with star glints, after 1980s film-poster and arcade titles

The colours

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

Newtro (Korean New-Retro) Synthwave / Outrun

#f4ecd8 ground · 36%
#1c1c1c ink · 14%
#f0b929 accent · 18%
#05d9e8 accent · 14%
#d7322b accent · 10%
#1f58a8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4ecd8;
  --ink: #1c1c1c;
  --accent-1: #f0b929;
  --accent-2: #05d9e8;
  --accent-3: #d7322b;
  --accent-4: #1f58a8;
  --font-display: "Kaushan Script", cursive;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

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'.

Synthwave / Outrun: Since about 2015 far-right 'fashwave' has appropriated synthwave, setting fascist symbols, classical statues and slogans on neon grids and swapping the classic neon sun for the Nazi Black Sun; keep the sun a plain banded disc, avoid sunwheel, eagle and bust-plus-slogan layouts, and check where borrowed fan art and music come from.

The two styles

A smiling cartoon tiger wearing a white cap holds a bottle of milk beneath large blue Korean lettering. Mountains, farms, wheat stalks, flower motifs and a small cow emblem fill an ornate blue, red and cream border.

2017–present · East Asia Newtro (Korean New-Retro) A South Korean branding trend, named 'Going New-tro' in Seoul National University's Trend Korea 2019 (October 2018), in which heritage firms reissue their own postwar to 1990s labels, trademarks and mascots, polished for young buyers. Jinro's sky-blue bottle and toad label (2019) and Gompyo flour's white bear on beer cans (2020) set the look: centred labels and badges, two or three flat colours on pale grounds, brush, cursive or hand-drawn logotypes, often Hanja with Hangul beside them, and a cartoon mascot as hero. Its source is the recent consumer past, reinterpreted, not reproduced.

A neon-lit sports car seen from behind travels down a reflective, palm-lined highway toward a futuristic skyline and a huge striped pink-and-yellow sun. Angular lettering reading “NIGHTRIDE” fills the starry sky above, alongside planets and shooting stars.

2006–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Oceania Synthwave / Outrun The retro-futurist look of synthwave music: a 1980s revival that grew from mid-2000s French electro and online synth scenes, took its other name from Sega's arcade racer Out Run (1986) and reached the mainstream with Drive (2011). Its register runs from the brooding night drives of Kavinsky and Hotline Miami to the affectionate parody of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Kung Fury. The visuals, settled around 2010–2013, recall the era's film posters, arcades and VHS: a neon grid running to a banded setting sun, chrome logotypes and hot-pink script, palms and sports cars at night, tape noise.

More combinations

With Newtro

All 14 combinations with Newtro

With Synthwave

All 19 combinations with Synthwave

Every style combination