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Tone & intent · Stance

Ironic & self-aware

Quotation, pastiche and knowing exaggeration.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under tone & intent: what should the work make people feel or do?

styles make it: 82
as a defining choice: 18
as a usual one: 42
now and then: 22
avoid it: 55

Styles defined by it 18

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

Simplicissimus Satirical Style (Munich)1896–1944 · Central EuropeThe house style of the Munich satirical weekly Simplicissimus, set by Th.
Dada1916–1924 · Central Europe, Western EuropeBorn in wartime Zurich at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 and spreading to Berlin, Hanover, Cologne and Paris, Dada used chance, absurdity and provocation against the culture that had produced the war.
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)1922–1929 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe print side of São Paulo's Modernismo (1922-29), set in jobbing print shops.
AIZ Political Photomontage (Heartfield)1930–1938 · Central EuropeThe political photomontage John Heartfield made for the communist weekly AIZ from 1930 to 1938, in Berlin and, from 1933, in Prague exile.
Zagreb School of Animated Film1954–1980 · Southern Europe, Central EuropeThe modernist animation of Zagreb Film's Studio for Animated Film, grown from reduced-animation advertisements of 1954-1955 and named the 'Zagreb school' by Georges Sadoul and André Martin after Cannes 1958.
Pop Art Graphics1955–1975 · North America, Western EuropePop turned the commercial imagery of post-war consumer culture (comics, packaging, celebrity photographs and advertising) into both its subject and its method.
Situationist Détournement Graphics1956–1972 · Western Europe, Northern EuropeGraphics of the Letterist and Situationist Internationals (1956–1972), built on détournement: taking existing words and pictures (comic strips, advertisements, news photographs, city maps, classic texts) and turning them against their source.
Tropicália Graphic Design1964–1975 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe graphic language of Brazil's Tropicália, foreshadowed by Rogério Duarte's poster for Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964), which already devours Ulm modernism, and set by his 1968 covers for Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
Turkish Weekly Humour Magazines (Gırgır to Uykusuz)1972–2025 · Middle East & North AfricaIstanbul's weekly cartoon magazines, from the Aral brothers' Gırgır (1972), which sold up to about half a million copies, through the chain of breakaways that followed it: Limon, LeMan, Penguen and Uykusuz.
Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD)1977–1990 · Western EuropeThe record sleeves that British art-school designers made after punk, for independent labels and some majors: Barney Bubbles at Stiff, Malcolm Garrett for Buzzcocks, Peter Saville at Factory and 23 Envelope at 4AD.
Techno-Futurist Graphics1986–2002 · Western Europe, East AsiaElectronic-music and video-game graphics of the late 1980s and 1990s that turned corporate modernism into a sci-fi consumer fantasy.
Bitterkomix (Afrikaans Underground Comics)1992–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe Afrikaans underground comics magazine founded in Stellenbosch in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes (Konradski), with Mark Kannemeyer (Lorcan White).
Hype Streetwear Graphics (Box Logo to Quotation Marks)1993–present · North America, East Asia, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Global / networkedThe logo-led graphics of streetwear since the 1990s: one wordmark or emblem on a plain T-shirt, hoodie or object is the product.
Superflat1993–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe flat, saturated, cartoon-crowded look that Takashi Murakami named in his exhibition and manifesto Superflat (Tokyo, 2000; US tour 2001).
Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)1997–present · South AsiaUrban 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.
Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular2003–present · Global / networked, North AmericaA deliberately amateur image dialect of forums, imageboards and social feeds, named 'Internet Ugly' by Nick Douglas in 2014.
Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef)2007–present · Middle East & North AfricaAdult comics magazines edited by Arab artists' collectives since 2007, at times with a ministry grant or an NGO partner: Samandal in Beirut, TokTok in Cairo, Lab619 in Tunis and Skefkef in Casablanca.
Vaporwave2011–2017 · Global / networked, North AmericaAn 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.

Styles that often use it 42

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

Styles that use it now and then 22

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.

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent