Stylogeny combining Shanghai Modern × Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Try

Style combination · Pairs well

Shanghai Modern × Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Both put a modern-girl figure in East Asian commercial posters; combine the Japanese geometric lettering with Shanghai's painterly figure for a pan-Asian Deco look.

From the research on Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Mix them and make something Shanghai Modern Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

BloomShanghai Modern × Showa Modern1910 · 1925
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Shanghai Modern, their arrangement from Shanghai Modern, the finish from Shanghai Modern. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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.

Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Type from Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji
Colour from Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji
Form from Shanghai Modern
Composition from Shanghai Modern
Surface from Shanghai Modern

02

The type

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

Display · Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Bloom

Shippori Mincho, standing in for Zuan-moji (図案文字), designed display lettering for kanji

Text · Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

The commercial graphic design of Japan's interwar modern-city years, when trained design workers (zuan-ka) made flat, stylised posters for department stores, subways and cosmetics. Kanji and kana were drawn as designed lettering (zuan-moji) beside stylised modern-girl figures and machine-age motifs. Sugiura's early work was Art Nouveau, and Yamana's Shiseido work was softer and more elegant, so the look is less rigid than the Art Deco of the West and less lyrical and pastel than Taisho Roman.

Shippori Mincho; Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji used Zuan-moji (図案文字), designed display lettering for kanji and Zuan-moji (図案文字), designed display lettering for kana

03

The colours

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

Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

  • #f1e8d4 ground · 39%
  • #1b1b1b ink · 15%
  • #e0a82e accent · 20%
  • #b8322f accent · 15%
  • #1f4e79 accent · 11%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e8d4;
  --ink: #1b1b1b;
  --accent-1: #e0a82e;
  --accent-2: #b8322f;
  --accent-3: #1f4e79;
  --font-display: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

04

The two styles

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. A stylised woman in a red swimsuit and wide-brimmed hat poses beside a blue sea beneath large Japanese lettering. A yellow sun, two birds, a lighthouse on a rocky shore, and a train crossing an arched viaduct complete the coastal scene. 1925–1940 · East Asia Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji The commercial graphic design of Japan's interwar modern-city years, when trained design workers (zuan-ka) made flat, stylised posters for department stores, subways and cosmetics. Kanji and kana were drawn as designed lettering (zuan-moji) beside stylised modern-girl figures and machine-age motifs. Sugiura's early work was Art Nouveau, and Yamana's Shiseido work was softer and more elegant, so the look is less rigid than the Art Deco of the West and less lyrical and pastel than Taisho Roman.

05

More combinations

With Shanghai Modern

All 12 combinations with Shanghai Modern

With Showa Modern Commercial Art and Zuan-moji

Every style combination