Stylogeny combining Synthwave × Vaporwave

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Style combination · Contrasts

Synthwave × Vaporwave

Vaporwave takes the same grids and neon into pastel, ironic collage of malls, desktops and stock imagery; choose synthwave for a heartfelt or affectionately parodic night drive and vaporwave when the nostalgia itself should be questioned.

From the research on Synthwave / Outrun

Mix them and make something Synthwave Vaporwave

SOUVENIRSOUVENIRSOUVENIRSynthwave × Vaporwave2006 · 2011
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Synthwave, their arrangement from Synthwave, the finish from Synthwave. 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.

Synthwave / Outrun Vaporwave

Type from Vaporwave
Colour from Vaporwave

Synthwave avoids pastel: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Form from Synthwave
Composition from Synthwave
Surface from Synthwave

02

The type

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

Display · Vaporwave

Souvenir

Syncopate, standing in for Full-width Latin text (ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ)

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

03

The colours

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

Synthwave / Outrun Vaporwave

  • #1a1040 ground · 36%
  • #fffb96 ink · 14%
  • #01cdfe accent · 18%
  • #05ffa1 accent · 14%
  • #ff9f1c accent · 10%
  • #b967ff accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #1a1040;
  --ink: #fffb96;
  --accent-1: #01cdfe;
  --accent-2: #05ffa1;
  --accent-3: #ff9f1c;
  --accent-4: #b967ff;
  --font-display: "Syncopate", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

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.

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The two styles

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. A large classical sculpted head rises from a turquoise swimming pool beneath a striped yellow-pink sun, surrounded by palm trees, waterfalls, city buildings and tropical foliage. Floating computer windows, a dolphin, cherry blossoms, a compact disc and a wireframe globe fill the pink-and-purple sky beneath the title “DREAM POOL.” 2011–2017 · Global / networked, North America Vaporwave An internet-born microgenre and visual aesthetic that remixes the debris of late-20th-century consumer culture (Windows 95 dialogs, classical busts, palm trees, mall interiors, Japanese text, early 3D renders) in pastel pinks and cyans. Emerging around 2011 from records by James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Vektroid, it is at once nostalgic homage and deadpan critique of corporate optimism.

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More combinations

With Synthwave

All 19 combinations with Synthwave

With Vaporwave

All 19 combinations with Vaporwave

Every style combination