Stylogeny combining Thaw Modernism × UPA

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Style combination · Contrasts

Thaw Modernism × UPA

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.

From the research on UPA & Cartoon Modern

Mix them and make something Thaw Modernism UPA

HelloThaw Modernism × UPA1956 · 1944
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from UPA, their arrangement from Thaw Modernism, the finish from UPA. 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.

Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak) UPA & Cartoon Modern

Type from Thaw Modernism
Colour from Thaw Modernism
Form from UPA
Composition from Thaw Modernism
Surface from UPA

02

The type

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

Display · Thaw Modernism

Hello

Jost, standing in for Zhurnalnaya rublenaya (Polygraphmash type bureau under Anatoly Shchukin, released 1947, Latin added 1962), the Soviet geometric sans after Erbar and Metro

Text · UPA

The modern cartoon of United Productions of America (UPA) and the 1950s films, commercials and books it inspired. Former Disney artists who looked to Matisse, Klee, Dufy, Léger and Picasso turned against Disney's illusionism. They flattened character and setting into one plane: caricatures in a clean line, colour laid flat and often slipped off that line, rooms cut to a few shapes on one shade or tilted askew, and limited animation. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950), its drawings likened to Saul Steinberg's, and Mr. Magoo carried the look to Warner Bros., MGM, Disney and television.

Newsreader; UPA used Playful hand-drawn cartoon lettering and Gestural biomorphic display letters

03

The colours

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

Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak) UPA & Cartoon Modern

  • #f2ead8 ground · 36%
  • #2b2b2b ink · 14%
  • #d8452f accent · 18%
  • #d8a32b accent · 14%
  • #f1c95e accent · 10%
  • #3ea39b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2ead8;
  --ink: #2b2b2b;
  --accent-1: #d8452f;
  --accent-2: #d8a32b;
  --accent-3: #f1c95e;
  --accent-4: #3ea39b;
  --font-display: "Jost", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Newsreader", 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.

UPA & Cartoon Modern: Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing are still licensed characters, and the films are not free to copy. Borrow the method (a flat field, a caricature, colour slipping off the line), never the characters, and do not present new work as a UPA film. Leave out the Asian caricature of Magoo's houseboy Charlie, which was dropped in the late 1960s, and gags that mock disability: blind and low-vision groups, including the National Federation of the Blind, protested the 1997 Magoo film.

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The two styles

A stylised woman in a teal dress reaches upward above a partial blue globe toward a yellow circle containing a white four-pointed star. A red rocket follows a sweeping curved trail toward the star, beneath the large red word “FURTHER.” 1956–1968 · Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe Thaw Modernism (Soviet and Czechoslovak) The light, stylised modernism that replaced Socialist Realist illusionism and Stalinist pomp in Soviet and Czechoslovak graphic and applied design, from the 1956 Secret Speech, the 1957 Moscow youth festival and Expo 58 to the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968 (a political cut-off; the manner ran on into the 1970s). Laconic flat figures, a few flat inks and clear pastels, airy asymmetric pages and the parabolas, trapezoids and spirals of the new architecture carried civic, scientific optimism into animation, children's books, magazines, tourism posters and Sputnik-age orbits and rockets. A retro-style illustrated poster reads “PARK DAY” above a smiling woman walking a lively dog on a red leash. A teal tree, golden sun, two birds and a small pink skyline decorate the cream background. 1944–1960 · North America UPA & Cartoon Modern The modern cartoon of United Productions of America (UPA) and the 1950s films, commercials and books it inspired. Former Disney artists who looked to Matisse, Klee, Dufy, Léger and Picasso turned against Disney's illusionism. They flattened character and setting into one plane: caricatures in a clean line, colour laid flat and often slipped off that line, rooms cut to a few shapes on one shade or tilted askew, and limited animation. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950), its drawings likened to Saul Steinberg's, and Mr. Magoo carried the look to Warner Bros., MGM, Disney and television.

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More combinations

With Thaw Modernism

All 11 combinations with Thaw Modernism

With UPA

All 16 combinations with UPA

Every style combination