Style combination · Contrasts

Solarpunk × Synthwave

Synthwave's retro future is neon, chrome and night on an empty grid; solarpunk is daylit, green and crowded with people. Put them side by side to stage a fossil-fuelled nostalgia against a renewable future.

From the research on Solarpunk

Mix them and make something Solarpunk Synthwave

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Solarpunk, 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.

Solarpunk Synthwave / Outrun

Type from Solarpunk: All caps
Ornamented display
Colour from Synthwave: Fluorescent & neon
Dark ground

Solarpunk avoids fluorescent & neon: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Form from Solarpunk: Biomorphic curves
Floral & vegetal
Composition from Synthwave: Central symmetry
Illusion of depth
Surface from Synthwave: Chrome & 3D render
Glitch

Solarpunk 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 · Solarpunk

Signal

Federant, standing in for Swash, Art Nouveau-flavoured upper- and lowercase display lettering, as in Solarpunk Magazine's orange masthead (Issue #14, 2024)

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 Synthwave, with a counter-accent from Solarpunk. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Solarpunk Synthwave / Outrun

#0d0221 ground · 36%
#ffd319 ink · 14%
#05d9e8 accent · 18%
#e8b445 accent · 14%
#ff9f1c accent · 10%
#b8652f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0d0221;
  --ink: #ffd319;
  --accent-1: #05d9e8;
  --accent-2: #e8b445;
  --accent-3: #ff9f1c;
  --accent-4: #b8652f;
  --font-display: "Federant", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Solarpunk: Draw original worlds rather than pastiches of Studio Ghibli films or of living illustrators such as Likhain, Fei Fei Ruan or Stephen Lillie, and do not prompt an image model with their names. Do not use the look to greenwash: Adam Flynn calls luxury condos with a green roof that price out existing communities 'fake Solarpunk urbanism', so show shared, affordable infrastructure and ordinary people. When a scene borrows architecture, dress or symbols from a specific culture (Afrofuturist, Indigenous or other), keep their meanings and credit their makers.

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

An ornate illustrated poster reads “BRIGHTER TOGETHER” above a sunlit, plant-covered city with glasshouses, bridges, waterfalls, wind turbines and sailboats on a canal. In the foreground, a woman tends flowers beside a man, a child and a cat, with flowering vines framing the scene.

2014–present · Global / networked, North America, Latin America & Caribbean Solarpunk Hopeful eco-futurist imagery born online. The word dates from a 2008 blog post; the look from an August 2014 Tumblr post by the artist Olivia Louise asking for renewable technology with 'an Art Nouveau veneer'. Sunlit painted vistas, or flat, textured cover illustrations thick with foliage, show cities grown over with gardens, stained-glass solar panels, airships, wind power and shared streets full of people, in natural greens and sky blues warmed by gold. It fills book and magazine covers, concept art and animation as the daylit, communal opposite of cyberpunk's neon night.

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 Solarpunk

All 10 combinations with Solarpunk

With Synthwave

All 19 combinations with Synthwave

Every style combination