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Stylogeny

Colour · Transitions

Gradients

Smooth blends, fades or spectral ramps.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under colour: what is the colour strategy?

styles make it: 97
as a defining choice: 12
as a usual one: 44
now and then: 41
avoid it: 116

Styles defined by it 12

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Ten Bamboo Studio Colour Woodblock (Douban & Gonghua) 1626–present · East Asia A kind of colour woodblock printing begun in late-Ming Nanjing, made so that a print looks like a brush painting.
Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat) 1919–1955 · Central Europe The Swiss descendant of the German object poster, made in Zurich and above all Basel from 1919 to the early 1950s.
Streamline Moderne 1930–1945 · North America The late, chiefly American phase of Art Deco, in which aerodynamic science became a visual language for a Depression-era culture hungry for progress.
Demoscene Graphics (Cracktros, Demos & Text-Mode Art) 1985–present · Northern Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe, North America, Global / networked The graphics of the demoscene, a mainly European community of coders, graphicians and musicians that grew from the intros software crackers added to pirated Commodore 64 and Amiga games in the mid-1980s.
Rave & Acid House Graphics 1988–2000 · Western Europe The pocket-sized promotional art of acid house, rave and early techno, handed out in record shops and car parks to advertise all-night parties.
Matatu & Nganya Art 1990–present · Sub-Saharan Africa The commissioned livery of Kenya's privately owned minibus taxis, at its most elaborate the Nairobi nganya.
Nigerian Pentecostal Crusade Poster & Billboard 1990–present · Sub-Saharan Africa The roadside adverts of Nigeria's Pentecostal and independent churches: billboards, banners and posters on poles, walls and bridges announcing crusades, revivals, conventions and night vigils.
Skeuomorphic UI 2000–2013 · Global / networked Interface design that imitates physical materials and objects (stitched leather, linen, wooden shelves, brushed aluminium, felt, paper and glass) so that digital tools look and behave like their real-world counterparts.
Frutiger Aero 2004–2013 · Global / networked The glossy, optimistic look of consumer technology from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, retrospectively named in 2017 by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute after Windows Vista's Aero interface and Adrian Frutiger's humanist sans.
Synthwave / Outrun 2006–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Oceania 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).
Glassmorphism 2020–present · Global / networked An interface style of translucent, frosted panels floating over vivid, blurred backgrounds, so that depth and hierarchy come from layered transparency.
Generative-AI Image Aesthetic 2022–present · Global / networked The house look of pictures synthesised by text-to-image diffusion models since 2022.

Styles that often use it 44

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 41

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Illusion of depth in 58 of 97
Gloss & highlights in 31 of 97
Painterly illustration in 58 of 97
Full bleed in 51 of 97
Luxurious & glamorous in 31 of 97
Web & CSS in 33 of 97

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in colour