Stylogeny combining Nianhua × Shanghai Modern

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Style combination · Pairs well

Nianhua × Shanghai Modern

Yuefenpai calendar posters grew from nianhua; mix its auspicious symbols with Shanghai's airbrushed modern figures.

From the research on Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print

Fold nianhua's auspicious symbols and bright folk colour into a calendar-poster layout for festive packaging.

From the research on Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai

Mix them and make something Nianhua Shanghai Modern

WowNianhua × Shanghai Modern1100 · 1910
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Shanghai Modern, their arrangement from Nianhua, the finish from Nianhua. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai

Type from Shanghai Modern
Colour from Nianhua
Form from Shanghai Modern
Composition from Nianhua
Surface from Nianhua

02

The type

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

Display · Shanghai Modern

Wow

Limelight; Shanghai Modern used Meishuzi and Songti

Text · Nianhua

Woodblock pictures bought each New Year and pasted on doors, walls and kitchen shrines to invite luck and ward off harm: paired door gods, plump babies with carp, the Kitchen God, opera scenes and auspicious rebuses. A black keyline block is overprinted or hand-coloured in saturated red, green, yellow and pink, and compositions are dense, frontal and often mirrored in pairs.

Shippori Mincho; Nianhua used Kaishu and Lishu (clerical script) for auspicious couplets

03

The colours

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

Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai

  • #f1e6cf ground · 36%
  • #1a1a1a ink · 14%
  • #f2c230 accent · 18%
  • #b8322f accent · 14%
  • #c8a24a accent · 10%
  • #e5739a accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e6cf;
  --ink: #1a1a1a;
  --accent-1: #f2c230;
  --accent-2: #b8322f;
  --accent-3: #c8a24a;
  --accent-4: #e5739a;
  --font-display: "Limelight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

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The two styles

A densely decorated, symmetrical Chinese folk-style print shows two children holding coins above paired carp and guardian lions, surrounded by pink flowers, green foliage, red lanterns and long-necked birds. A yellow panel with black Chinese lettering sits beneath a rising sun at the top. c. 1100–present · East Asia Nianhua & Chinese Folk Print Woodblock pictures bought each New Year and pasted on doors, walls and kitchen shrines to invite luck and ward off harm: paired door gods, plump babies with carp, the Kitchen God, opera scenes and auspicious rebuses. A black keyline block is overprinted or hand-coloured in saturated red, green, yellow and pink, and compositions are dense, frontal and often mirrored in pairs. An ornate vintage-style illustration shows a woman in a floral qipao resting her chin on her hand beside a teacup and a vase of blossoms, with a waterfront city and Chinese pavilion behind her. Floral borders, birds, geometric corner ornaments, a small landscape panel, and the Chinese heading “春曉” surround the portrait. 1910–1949 · East Asia Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai The commercial art of treaty-port Shanghai. Calendar posters (yuefenpai) given away by tobacco, pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms took over the New Year print's place on the wall, pairing glamorous women in qipao, softly modelled in Zheng Mantuo's rubbed-brush watercolour technique, with ornamental borders, calendars and products. In the 1920s–30s pictorials, cartoons and 'art lettering' (meishuzi) absorbed Art Deco geometry into a cosmopolitan Chinese modernism.

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More combinations

With Nianhua

All 15 combinations with Nianhua

With Shanghai Modern

All 12 combinations with Shanghai Modern

Every style combination