Imagery · Drawn & painted
Flat vector illustration
Clean shapes and geometric characters.
A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under imagery: what kind of pictures, if any?
- styles make it
- 52
- as a defining choice
- 4
- as a usual one
- 29
- now and then
- 19
- avoid it
- 7
Styles defined by it 4
For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.
Illustrated Rom-Com Book Cover (Cartoon Couple Cover)The illustrated cover of the contemporary romantic comedy: a couple drawn as flat cartoon figures with simplified faces, from silhouettes and hidden faces to a few cartoon features, caught in one gesture that states the premise, on a single saturated ground of teal, pink, yellow or purple, under a hand-lettered title so large that the figures often lean on it.
Corporate MemphisThe flat vector illustration style that became the default visual voice of big tech in the late 2010s: faceless, ethnically non-specific figures with elongated limbs and tiny heads, drawn in bright flat colour among blobs, leaves and confetti.
- Palestinian Watermelon and Keffiyeh GraphicsGraphics of Palestinian identity and of solidarity with Palestinians, made by Palestinian artists, the diaspora and supporters worldwide and shared mainly online, above all since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
Ukrainian Wartime Graphics (Saint Javelin, War Stamps and Be Brave Like Ukraine)The graphics of Ukraine's defence since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, made by the state, the national post, agencies, illustrators and volunteers at home and abroad.
Styles that often use it 29
A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.
Plakatstil / SachplakatThe German 'object poster' launched by Lucian Bernhard's Priester match poster and printed by Berlin's Hollerbaum & Schmidt.
- London Transport DesignThe design programme Frank Pick built for London's Underground from 1908 and the London Passenger Transport Board (1933–40), continued by Harold Hutchison (1947–66).
Art DecoThe glamorous modern style named after the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which disciplined ornament into geometry: sunbursts, chevrons, stepped forms and sleek stylised figures rendered in lacquer-smooth colour with metallic accents.
Leningrad Avant-Garde Picture BookThin, large picture books made in Petrograd/Leningrad from 1922 to the mid-1930s for Raduga and the Gosizdat children's department led by Samuil Marshak, with Vladimir Lebedev as art editor.
Scandinavian FunctionalismNordic functionalism (funkis) arrived in graphic form with Sigurd Lewerentz's posters and winged emblem for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition.
Milanese Industrial Modernism (Olivetti, Pirelli, Studio Boggeri)The Milan-centred school that married Bauhaus- and Swiss-trained discipline with Italian painterly wit for enlightened industrial patrons such as Olivetti, Pirelli and La Rinascente.
WPA Silkscreen PostersPosters made by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration to promote health campaigns, education, theatre, travel and the national parks during the Depression.
American Mid-Century ModernismThe American synthesis of European avant-garde form with wit, pragmatism and commercial clients, led by Paul Rand, Alvin Lustig, Lester Beall, Bradbury Thompson and Saul Bass.
West German Conceptual Film & Culture Poster (Hillmann and Rambow)The art-film and culture poster Hans Hillmann developed from 1953 for the West German distributors Neue Filmkunst and Atlas Film, which his Kassel student Gunter Rambow took with Gerhard Lienemeyer into staged photo posters for theatre, publishers and protest.
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).
Turkish Modernist Poster & Graphic DesignThe posters of Istanbul's first generation of professional graphic designers for theatres, films, festivals and exhibitions.
Cuban Revolutionary Poster (OSPAAAL & ICAIC)The poster culture of revolutionary Cuba, produced for the film institute ICAIC and the solidarity organisation OSPAAAL.
- Greek Tourism Modernism (EOT)The modernist image of Greece made for the National Tourism Organisation (EOT) by Michalis Katzourakis, its art adviser in 1960-1967, and by Frederick Carabott, who advised it until 1967; in 1962 the two also founded the K&K Athens Advertising Centre.
Kawaii DesignJapan's culture of cuteness, which grew from 1970s teenage rounded handwriting and shōjo fancy goods into a global design language through Sanrio, character merchandise and emoji.
City Pop IllustrationThe painted look of Japanese city pop record sleeves and magazine covers, fixed by Hiroshi Nagai's sleeve for Eiichi Ohtaki's A Long Vacation (1981) and Eizin Suzuki's for Tatsuro Yamashita's For You (1982).
Techno-Futurist GraphicsElectronic-music and video-game graphics of the late 1980s and 1990s that turned corporate modernism into a sci-fi consumer fantasy.
Screenprinted Gig & Alt-Movie PosterHand-pulled, numbered screenprints that revived the rock poster in Austin from 1991, led by Frank Kozik, and spread via Flatstock fairs and, from 2004, Mondo to 'alternative' film posters, for collectors as much as the show.
SuperflatThe flat, saturated, cartoon-crowded look that Takashi Murakami named in his exhibition and manifesto Superflat (Tokyo, 2000; US tour 2001).
Emoji Pictographic LanguagePictographs typed as characters and set inline in running text.
- Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)Urban Indian gift and T-shirt design from the late 1990s into the 2010s that recasts the street and bazaar as ironic, affectionate icons: truck tails and 'Horn OK Please', auto-rickshaws, Ambassadors and Chetaks, cutting chai, old Bollywood stills and dialogues, Bhagat Singh in place of Che.
Yuru-chara (Japanese Local Mascot Design)Japan's local mascots: characters commissioned by prefectures, towns and tourism bodies to stand for a place, named yuru-kyara ('loose characters') by the illustrator Jun Miura around 2000.
Synthwave / OutrunThe 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).
Risograph & Indie Print CultureA contemporary culture of zines, art books, posters and prints made on Japanese Risograph stencil duplicators, whose soy-based spot inks (fluorescent pink, yellow, blue, teal) are laid down one drum at a time.
Flat DesignAn interface and illustration language that stripped screens of simulated materials, replacing bevels, gloss and textures with solid fields of colour, clean sans-serif type and reduced pictograms.
Low Poly IllustrationA digital illustration and game look in which subjects are built from a visible mesh of a few flat-shaded polygons, so that animals, faces, vehicles and landscapes read as hard-edged facets with no outline or texture.
Guochao (China-Chic National Trend)A Chinese branding and fashion trend, usually dated from Li-Ning's 'China Li-Ning' show at New York Fashion Week in February 2018, that redraws heritage motifs as finishes for sneakers, apparel, cosmetics and museum merchandise.
Book Blob (Abstract Colour-Blob Literary Fiction Cover)The default jacket of US literary fiction around 2019–2023: soft, overlapping blobs of saturated colour fill the cover edge to edge (cobalt, pink, orange-red, deep green, mustard).
Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)The text-led explainer slideshows that filled Instagram after George Floyd's murder in May 2020.
- Woman, Life, Freedom Protest Graphics (Iran and the Diaspora)Posters and digital graphics made in Iran and the diaspora after Mahsa (Jina) Amini died in morality-police custody in September 2022.
Styles that use it now and then 19
An occasional choice in these styles.
- Lotería Card Imagery (Mexican Lotería)1887–present
- Italian Futurism1909–1944
- Streamline Moderne1930–1945
- Estado Novo Folk Modernism (SPN)1933–1949
- Hebrew Poster Lettering & Early Israeli State Design1934–1974
- UPA & Cartoon Modern1944–1960
- Vietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)1945–present
- Zagreb School of Animated Film1954–1980
- Chilean Unidad Popular & Nueva Canción Graphics1967–1973
- Australian Poster Collective Screenprints1971–1994
- Memphis Design1981–1988
- Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics)2005–present
- Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives)2011–2024
- DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism2012–2022
- Material Design2014–present
- Solarpunk2014–present
- Newtro (Korean New-Retro)2017–present
- NFT Profile-Picture Collections (CryptoPunks to Bored Apes)2017–present
- Neo-Brutalism2020–present
It often goes with
Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.
- Isolated objectin 42 of 52
- Warm & approachablein 30 of 52
- Geometric sansin 22 of 52
- Playful & wittyin 40 of 52
- Stylised figurationin 46 of 52
- Flatin 46 of 52
Styles that avoid it
Styles that deliberately leave it out.