Style combination · Pairs well
Scandinavian Functionalism × Thaw Modernism
Nordic calm and natural colours make the Thaw's pastel optimism quieter and more domestic.
Mix them and make something Scandinavian Functionalism Thaw Modernism
01
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.
Scandinavian Functionalism Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak)
- Type from Scandinavian Functionalism
- Colour from Thaw Modernism
- Form from Thaw Modernism
- Composition from Scandinavian Functionalism
- Surface from Scandinavian Functionalism
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Text · Scandinavian Functionalism
Nordic functionalism (funkis) arrived in graphic form with Sigurd Lewerentz's posters and winged emblem for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition. It adapted Bauhaus rationalism to a social-democratic ideal of beautiful everyday things for everyone. Its graphic language is modernism with warmth: clear sans-serif or humane serif type, generous space, friendly simplified symbols and colours taken from nature, applied to public services, consumer goods and national identities.
Jost; Scandinavian Functionalism used Futura and Berling Antikva
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Thaw Modernism, with a counter-accent from Scandinavian Functionalism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Scandinavian Functionalism Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak)
-
#f2ead8ground · 36% -
#2b2b2bink · 14% -
#d8452faccent · 18% -
#e3b53aaccent · 14% -
#a63a2aaccent · 10% -
#3ea39baccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f2ead8;
--ink: #2b2b2b;
--accent-1: #d8452f;
--accent-2: #e3b53a;
--accent-3: #a63a2a;
--accent-4: #3ea39b;
--font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak): This was the official design culture of one-party states, and its years ended with the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968: use its optimism knowingly rather than as innocent retro, and draw new figures and emblems instead of copying Soyuzmultfilm characters or state insignia; Soviet and communist symbols are restricted by law in Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine, and the Czech Republic has criminalised promoting communist ideology since 2026; films such as Khitruk's (he died in 2012) remain in copyright.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Scandinavian Functionalism
- Minimalist Graphic Design Pairs well · Add natural colour and rounded forms to minimalist reduction for calm, approachable consumer branding.
- Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type Contrasts · The crowded Victorian handbill is what funkis cleared away; quote one for a heritage-versus-modern contrast.
- Corporate Memphis Contrasts · Both aim for friendliness, but Corporate Memphis shouts; use Nordic restraint to get warmth from colour and space instead of rubbery figures.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Warm a Swiss grid with Nordic colour and one simple, friendly symbol to keep order without coldness.
- NK Textilkammare Geometric Print (Astrid Sampe, Signerad Textil) Pairs well · The parent language: a calm functionalist layout of type and white space with one band of NK-style striped cloth as its only ornament.
- DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism Pairs well · Shares a warm, domestic restraint; borrow Nordic materials and craft photography to give a pastel system more texture and credibility.
- Moomin Graphics (Tove Jansson's Pen-Drawn World and its Licensed Afterlife) Pairs well · The Teema mug is the meeting point: a plain functional Nordic shape carrying one warm hand drawing.
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism) Pairs well · The same Nordic ideal of good everyday things, turned up loud; set one Marimekko-scale print against a calm funkis layout with a light ground and a plain sans so the pattern carries all the colour.
With Thaw Modernism
- Polish Poster School Pairs well · Add the Polish poster's single painted metaphor and hand lettering to push Thaw illustration towards darker, more personal wit.
- Googie & Atomic Age Pairs well · Its capitalist cousin shares the parabolas, boomerangs and sputniks; borrow its starbursts for a louder space-age mood, but drop the neon and roadside salesmanship to keep the civic tone.
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Contrasts · The idiom the Thaw replaced: set a flat, witty Thaw figure against heroic, illusionist realism to make the break visible.
- Polish Cold War Neon (PRL Neonisation) Pairs well · The thaw's laconic figures, few flat colours and civic optimism are the daytime print counterpart of these signs; pair them for a cinema, café or festival identity that has to work on paper and on a facade.
- Soviet Central Asian Ornamental Modernism Pairs well · Borrow its laconic flat figures, orbits and rockets for posters and booklets that sit beside a mosaic wall about science and space.
- Festival of Britain 'Contemporary' Pattern (Lucienne Day and the Festival Pattern Group) Pairs well · Thaw graphics share the light utopian line and flat pastel shapes; its stylised figures and stars give the repeat a narrative accent.
- UPA & Cartoon Modern Contrasts · The nearest genome in the atlas, and close kin in animation: critics found that Khitruk's Story of a Crime (1962) looked more like UPA than Disney, and called it a rare example of Soviet cartoon modern design. It shares the limited movement and the set cut down to its props. But Thaw modernism prints a few clear pastel inks on a light ground and aims at civic, Sputnik-age optimism, while UPA sets one or two caricatures on a single, often saturated, flat field, often lets the colour slip off the line and pokes fun at American folkways.
- Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry) Pairs well · Borrow the airy pages and laconic pastel figures of 1960s Eastern European illustration, which the Mistrzowie Ilustracji reissues keep in view, to open up a spread that has grown too crowded.