Colour · Strategy
Limited spot colours
Two or three flat inks.
A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under colour: what is the colour strategy?
- styles make it
- 214
- as a defining choice
- 68
- as a usual one
- 109
- now and then
- 37
- avoid it
- 1
Styles defined by it 68
For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.
- Ethiopian Ge'ez Manuscript & Haräg IlluminationThe manuscript art of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, written in the Ge'ez syllabary on parchment from the Garima Gospels (radiocarbon-dated to roughly the 4th–7th centuries) to the present.
- Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)Square Kufic builds Arabic script on a square grid: straight lines and right angles only, with every stroke as wide as the gap beside it.
- Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori DesignToi Māori, the visual arts of the tangata whenua of Aotearoa, of which kōwhaiwhai, the painted scroll patterns of paddles and meeting-house rafters, is the most graphic strand.
- Northwest Coast Formline DesignThe two-dimensional design system of the northern Northwest Coast nations, painted, carved and woven onto boxes, house fronts, robes and hats, and printed as serigraphs since the 1960s.
- Russian ConstructivismConstructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society.
- Estridentismo (Stridentist) GraphicsMexico's first avant-garde (1921-27), launched when Manuel Maples Arce pasted his manifesto Actual No. 1 on Mexico City walls.
- Italian Fascist Graphics (Romanità & Exhibition Photomontage)The visual language of Italian Fascism, which turned modernist means to a cult of Rome and of the Duce.
- Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)The print side of São Paulo's Modernismo (1922-29), set in jobbing print shops.
- MavoTokyo's anarchist avant-garde, founded in July 1923 by Murayama Tomoyoshi, back from a year in Berlin, with four former Futurists, and its magazine MAVO (seven issues, July 1924 to August 1925).
- Vietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)The state poster art of Vietnam from the 1945 August Revolution to today.
- Onitsha Market PamphletsCheap, stapled pamphlets of romance, advice, drama and political biography, written by students, clerks, journalists and traders and printed by jobbing letterpress shops around Onitsha Main Market in eastern Nigeria from the late 1940s.
- Bossa Nova Sleeve Modernism (César Villela and Elenco)The cover language of bossa nova, made in Rio by the self-taught designer César Villela, first at Odeon and then on the first sixteen LPs of Aloysio de Oliveira's label Elenco (from 1963), often around Francisco Pereira's photographs.
- 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.
- Palestinian Resistance PosterThe poster culture of the Palestinian national movement after 1965, issued by the PLO and its factions from Beirut and other Arab capitals for refugee camps, homes and solidarity audiences abroad.
- Black Panther Party GraphicsThe visual language of the Black Panther Party, created largely by its Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas, for the weekly newspaper The Black Panther.
- Ultras Graphics (Curva Banners and Tifo)The graphic language of Italy's organised football supporters, the ultras, from the late 1960s, and of the groups that copied them across Europe, North Africa and beyond.
- Ethiopian Revolutionary Poster (Derg Era)The poster and mural art of the Derg military government and its successor, Mengistu's People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1974–1991), made mostly by teachers and students of the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts.
- 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.
Styles that often use it 109
A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.
- Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic & Register CompositionThe visual system of pharaonic Egypt, in which writing is made of pictures and pictures are ruled like writing.
- Maghrebi Script (Maghribi Calligraphy of al-Andalus and North Africa)The family of Arabic scripts of al-Andalus and North Africa, descended from early Kufic bookhands.
- Ottoman Tughra & Dîvânî Chancery CalligraphyThe Ottoman sultan's calligraphic monogram and the chancery hand written beneath it.
- Zoomorphic & Figural Calligraphy (Islamic Calligrams)Pictorial writing in which the strokes of a devotional text form one figure: a lion of ʿAli built from the Nad-e ʿAli prayer, a galleon whose hull spells the names of the Seven Sleepers, a peacock, a Sufi cap.
- Đông Hồ & Hàng Trống Folk PrintsVietnam's two classic folk-print schools, bought for Tết. Đông Hồ families press each colour from its own carved block onto giấy điệp, dó paper brushed with ground scallop shell whose streaked, faintly sparkling surface serves as the white, and print the black line last.
- Thai Yantra (Yant) DiagramsThai protective diagrams in which Pali formulae, written in Khom, a sacred script derived from Khmer, are packed into squares, circles, triangles, spires and the outlines of Buddhas, monks and tigers, often framed by lines of script.
- Kalighat Pat & Battala Bazaar PrintsThe bazaar art of nineteenth-century Calcutta: watercolours sold to pilgrims by patua painters at the Kalighat temple, and the cheap woodcuts and metal engravings that Battala presses printed for chapbooks and almanacs.
- African Wax & Fancy PrintIndustrially printed cotton made for West and Central African markets, first by Dutch and British mills that imitated Javanese batik with resin resist, and later by African mills.
- Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)The flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament.
- Glasgow StyleGlasgow's distinctive answer to Art Nouveau, formed around Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret and Frances Macdonald and Herbert MacNair at the Glasgow School of Art.
- German Book Art Movement (Buchkunstbewegung)The German reform of the book, from the magazine Pan (1895) to the private presses that ended around 1933.
- 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).
- Arnhem Land Bark Painting & RarrkPainting in ochres on flattened stringybark by Yolŋu, Kunwinjku, Kuninjku and other clans of Arnhem Land, carrying ceremonial designs into portable form; collected from 1912, painted through art centres since the 1970s.
- Vorticism & BLAST TypographyLondon's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915).
- DadaBorn 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.
- BauhausThe German school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 moved from Expressionist craft ideals to a programme of 'art and technology' after 1923, when Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt made its printing and advertising workshops a laboratory for functional communication.
- Nippon Kōbō & Tōhōsha Photo-Propaganda Magazines (NIPPON & FRONT)Luxury photo-propaganda magazines that imperial Japan sent abroad, 1934–45.
- Dazibao (Big-Character Posters)Handwritten wall posters in large brush characters that turned the walls of Mao-era China into a public forum for criticism, denunciation and, at the Democracy Wall, dissent.
- Casablanca School Graphic ModernismA postcolonial modernism formed at the Casablanca fine-art school under Farid Belkahia, where Mohamed Melehi, Mohammed Chabâa and colleagues set Amazigh rugs and jewellery, painted ceilings and calligraphy beside a Bauhaus-style merging of art, craft and design.
- Swiss Punk / New Wave TypographyA rebellion from inside the Swiss school: Wolfgang Weingart and his Basel students kept the grotesque and the grid but set them in motion with extreme letterspacing, stepped and angled lines, rules and bars, enlarged halftone screens and layered film montage.
- Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)The posters and identities of Grapus, a Paris collective founded in 1970 by Communist Party members who had met in the 1968 poster workshops.
- Western Desert IconographyThe acrylic painting movement that took form at Papunya in 1971, when men there painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall and then on board, carrying an older practice of sand, body and ceremonial designs into lasting form. 'Western Desert' is an umbrella name: the movement also includes Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters of the Central Desert.
- Roots Reggae Sleeve Art & Rasta IconographyThe record sleeves of roots reggae, from Catch a Fire (1973) until dancehall took over in the 1980s.
- Punk & DIY ZineThe graphic voice of punk rock in fanzines, record sleeves and gig flyers: images and words cut from newspapers, typed or scrawled, pasted down and run off on a photocopier.
- Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD)The 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.
- Iranian Revolutionary & Sacred Defence PosterPosters, murals and stamps of the 1978–79 Iranian Revolution and the 1980–88 war with Iraq, which fused the red-white-black international revolutionary poster with Persian miniature and coffeehouse narrative painting.
- Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)One fixed page for the Qur'an across much of the Muslim world: Uthman Taha's fully vowelled Naskh in fifteen justified lines, written so that every page ends at the end of a verse (the late Ottoman âyet-berkenar layout), inside a floral frame, with sura titles in framed cartouches and verse numbers in small round medallions.
- Bitterkomix (Afrikaans Underground Comics)The Afrikaans underground comics magazine founded in Stellenbosch in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes (Konradski), with Mark Kannemeyer (Lorcan White).
- Contemporary Chinese Book Design ('Most Beautiful Books of China')Chinese book design since 2003, when Shanghai founded the yearly 'Most Beautiful Books of China' award, whose winners go on to Leipzig.
- Seoul Independent Graphic Design (Small-Studio Scene)Graphic design by Seoul's small, self-run studios, which from about 2005 chose to stay small.
- Oaxacan Protest Printmaking & Street Graphics (ASARO)The street graphics of Oaxaca City since the 2006 teachers' strike and APPO uprising, when ASARO, the stencil collective Lapiztola and later workshops such as Colectivo Subterráneos made the colonial centre's walls a newspaper.
- Hong Kong Protest Art (Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Protests)The graphics of Hong Kong's democracy protests, from the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the national security law of 2020, in two linked media.
- Sudanese Revolution Graphics (Digital Illustrations and Sit-in Murals)The graphics of Sudan's December Revolution from 2018: digital illustrations and cartoons shared on Instagram and Facebook from inside Sudan and the diaspora, and the murals of the 2019 Khartoum sit-in.
- 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 37
An occasional choice in these styles.
- Chinese Paper-Cut (Jianzhi)c. 500–present
- Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Traditionc. 690–present
- Hebrew Micrographyc. 895–present
- Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)c. 960–present
- Nianhua & Chinese Folk Printc. 1100–present
- Mongol Bichig Calligraphy & Ugalz Ornamentc. 1204–present
- Tarot de Marseille Woodcut Cards1639–present
- Lubok Popular Print1650–1920
- Neoclassical Book Typography1757–1830
- Imagerie d'Épinal & European Bilderbogen1796–1939
- Japonisme1860–1910
- Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino)1879–present
- Mexican Popular Graphics (Posada)1880–1917
- Nieuwe Kunst (Dutch Art Nouveau)1892–1914
- Guna Mola1900–present
- Uli & Nsibidi Line and Sign Tradition1900–present
- Chinese Modern Woodcut Movement1931–1949
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster1932–1989
- Literatura de Cordel Woodcut1940–present
- UPA & Cartoon Modern1944–1960
- Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)1947–present
- Argentine Adventure Historieta (Oesterheld–Breccia)1948–1996
- Hurufiyya Calligraphic Modernism1949–present
- Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism1951–1965
- Chinese National-Style Animation (Shanghai Animation Film Studio)1956–1989
- Rorke's Drift Linocut1962–1982
- Woodland School (Legend Painting)1962–present
- Munich 1972 Olympic Design (Otl Aicher)1966–1972
- Atelier Populaire (May '68 Screenprint Poster)1968
- Pardhan Gond Painting (Jangarh Kalam)1981–present
- Grunge Typography1990–2000
- South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi)1995–present
- Fantasy User Interface (FUI) & Sci-Fi HUD1999–present
- Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics)2005–present
- Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)2008–present
- Flat Design2010–2016
- Dark Tech Minimalism2019–present
It often goes with
Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.
- Typography onlyin 96 of 214
- Light groundin 159 of 214
- Generous white spacein 86 of 214
- Flat fieldsin 181 of 214
- Dynamic asymmetryin 84 of 214
- Line illustrationin 120 of 214