Style combination · Contrasts

Pop Art Graphics × Superflat

Both turn commodities into art; take Pop's repetition and frontal commodity but swap its halftone and off-register silkscreen for Superflat's smooth vector fills and anime characters, so the print process disappears.

From the research on Superflat

Mix them and make something Pop Art Graphics Superflat

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Superflat, their arrangement from Pop Art Graphics, the finish from Pop Art Graphics. 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.

Pop Art Graphics Superflat

Type from Pop Art Graphics: Hand-lettering
Type as image
Colour from Superflat: Full polychrome
Flat fields
Form from Superflat: Stylised figuration
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Pop Art Graphics: Isolated object
Collage & layering
Surface from Pop Art Graphics: Halftone & Ben-Day dots
Hard offset shadow

Superflat avoids halftone & ben-day dots: 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 · Pop Art Graphics

Okay

Bangers; Pop Art Graphics used Comic-book hand lettering and Franklin Gothic

Text · Superflat

The flat, saturated, cartoon-crowded look that Takashi Murakami named in his exhibition and manifesto Superflat (Tokyo, 2000; US tour 2001). It draws a line from Edo painting and prints to postwar anime and manga, and flattens high and low, art and merchandise into one plane. Smiling flowers, many-eyed characters and anime figures come in unshaded polychrome, smooth and glossy, cute and grotesque at once, sold as handbags and album covers as well as paintings. This entry follows the drawn core of Murakami and his Kaikai Kiki circle; the shows also held photography, video and sculpture.

Zen Maru Gothic; Superflat used Letters drawn into the character and Many-coloured repeated monogram

The colours

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

Pop Art Graphics Superflat

#fbfaf5 ground · 36%
#1a1a1a ink · 14%
#ffd900 accent · 18%
#00a0e9 accent · 14%
#e10600 accent · 10%
#e4007f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #fbfaf5;
  --ink: #1a1a1a;
  --accent-1: #ffd900;
  --accent-2: #00a0e9;
  --accent-3: #e10600;
  --accent-4: #e4007f;
  --font-display: "Bangers", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Maru Gothic", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Superflat: Some canonical works use explicit otaku sexual imagery, such as Murakami's My Lonesome Cowboy (1998), and associated artists engage with lolicon art: Mr. describes himself as a lolicon and Henmaru Machino parodies it; never sexualise childlike figures. The mushroom-cloud skulls of Murakami's Time Bokan works and the title Little Boy, the name of the Hiroshima bomb, refer to the atomic bombings, and critics such as Dong-Yeon Koh argue that this victim narrative obscures Japanese aggression in China and Korea; do not use mushroom clouds or skulls as cute decoration. Handle borrowed Buddhist iconography and phrases, such as Kannon, with respect, and draw original characters and flowers: Mr. DOB, the smiling flowers and the Louis Vuitton monogram are owned designs.

The two styles

A retro comic-style woman with curled dark hair, a pink headscarf and red nails holds an open bottle of dark fizzy drink. Large yellow “ZING!” lettering fills the top above bright starbursts, bubbles and red, yellow and blue halftone textures.

1955–1975 · North America, Western Europe Pop Art Graphics Pop turned the commercial imagery of post-war consumer culture (comics, packaging, celebrity photographs and advertising) into both its subject and its method. Images are appropriated, enlarged, flattened and repeated; colour is bright and unmodulated; and the printing process itself, from Ben-Day dots to off-register silkscreen, is left visible as a sign of mass production.

A densely packed, brightly coloured cartoon poster reads “HAPPYVERSE” above a smiling blue-haired character with extra eyes on their forehead, hair and outstretched palms. Smiling flowers, winged rabbits, floating creatures, stars and planets surround the character, with a smiling Earth at the bottom.

1993–present · East Asia, Global / networked Superflat The flat, saturated, cartoon-crowded look that Takashi Murakami named in his exhibition and manifesto Superflat (Tokyo, 2000; US tour 2001). It draws a line from Edo painting and prints to postwar anime and manga, and flattens high and low, art and merchandise into one plane. Smiling flowers, many-eyed characters and anime figures come in unshaded polychrome, smooth and glossy, cute and grotesque at once, sold as handbags and album covers as well as paintings. This entry follows the drawn core of Murakami and his Kaikai Kiki circle; the shows also held photography, video and sculpture.

More combinations

With Pop Art Graphics

All 33 combinations with Pop Art Graphics

With Superflat

All 18 combinations with Superflat

Every style combination