Skip to content

Tone & intent · Emotion

Playful & witty

Humour, games, visual puns.

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

styles make it: 198
as a defining choice: 34
as a usual one: 94
now and then: 70
avoid it: 10

Styles defined by it 34

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

Đông Hồ & Hàng Trống Folk Prints1600–present · Southeast AsiaVietnam'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.
Lotería Card Imagery (Mexican Lotería)1887–present · Latin America & Caribbean, North AmericaThe picture deck of Mexico's lotería, a bingo-like game of chance.
Czech Poetist Book Design (Devětsil)1922–1938 · Central EuropeThe book and magazine design of the Czech Devětsil circle, where Karel Teige and his colleagues turned constructivist tools (asymmetry, sans and slab capitals, heavy bars, photomontage) toward Poetism's lyrical celebration of travel, cinema, jazz and the circus.
Leningrad Avant-Garde Picture Book1922–1936 · Eastern EuropeThin, 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.
Milanese Industrial Modernism (Olivetti, Pirelli, Studio Boggeri)1933–1975 · Southern EuropeThe 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.
Tiki Pop (Polynesian Pop)1934–present · North AmericaThe mainland American fantasy of the South Seas, begun by Don the Beachcomber's Hollywood bar (about 1934) and Trader Vic's in Oakland and at its height in the Polynesian restaurants of the 1950s and 60s.
American Mid-Century Modernism1940–1970 · North AmericaThe 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.
UPA & Cartoon Modern1944–1960 · North AmericaThe modern cartoon of United Productions of America (UPA) and the 1950s films, commercials and books it inspired.
Escuela Bruguera (Spanish Humour Comics)1947–1986 · Southern EuropeThe house style of Editorial Bruguera's humour cartoonists in Barcelona from 1947 to 1986, named the 'Escuela Bruguera' by Terenci Moix in 1968.
French Post-War Visual-Gag Poster (Savignac, Villemot, Morvan)1948–1979 · Western EuropeThe humorous street poster of post-war Paris, which took off in 1949 when Raymond Savignac and Bernard Villemot showed their rejected projects together and Savignac's Monsavon cow, its udder filling a bar of soap, went up on the walls.
Push Pin Style1954–1980 · North AmericaThe eclectic illustrative style of New York's Push Pin Studios, founded by Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel.
Arab Children's Comic Magazines (Samir to Majid)1956–present · Middle East & North AfricaArabic children's comics weeklies, from Dar al-Hilal's Samir in Cairo (1956) to Abu Dhabi's Majid (1979), mixing translated Western strips with house characters by Egyptian, Lebanese, Armenian and European artists.
Fluxus Graphics (Maciunas)1962–1978 · North America, Central Europe, Western EuropeThe house graphics George Maciunas made from 1962 until his death in 1978 for Fluxus, a network of artists who staged events and sold cheap multiples.
Phototype Expressive Typography (Lubalin & U&lc)1962–1985 · North AmericaThe display typography of the phototype era, led in New York by Herb Lubalin, his lettering partners John Pistilli, Tom Carnase and Tony DiSpigna, and the International Typeface Corporation.
Hipgnosis Photographic Concept Sleeve1968–1983 · Western EuropeThe sleeves the London studio Hipgnosis made for Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, 10cc and others from 1968 to 1983.
Tingatinga Painting1968–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaA Tanzanian popular painting school begun in Dar es Salaam by Edward Tingatinga (1932–1972), who from 1968 painted animals, birds and village scenes in glossy bicycle enamel on square hardboard ceiling boards for residents and tourists.
Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)1970–1990 · Western EuropeThe posters and identities of Grapus, a Paris collective founded in 1970 by Communist Party members who had met in the 1968 poster workshops.
Kawaii Design1970–present · East AsiaJapan'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.
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.
Dutch Expressive Postmodernism (Studio Dumbar & Hard Werken)1977–1994 · Western EuropeAn anti-functionalist current in Dutch graphic design led by Studio Dumbar in The Hague (from 1977) and the Rotterdam collective Hard Werken (magazine from 1979, design office 1982–1994).
La Movida Madrileña Graphics1977–1988 · Southern EuropeThe graphics of Madrid's Movida, the post-Franco scene of new-wave bands, fanzines and night life usually dated from the Canito concert of 9 February 1980 and later backed by the city council.
Memphis Design1981–1988 · Southern EuropeThe Milan collective founded by Ettore Sottsass, whose furniture, laminates and objects (first shown in September 1981) became a graphic language of their own.
Emoji Pictographic Language1997–present · East Asia, Global / networkedPictographs typed as characters and set inline in running text.
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.
Yuru-chara (Japanese Local Mascot Design)2000–present · East AsiaJapan'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.
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.
Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay2006–present · East AsiaThe bullet-comment layer of Japanese and Chinese video sites, begun on Niconico in December 2006 and taken up by AcFun and Bilibili in 2008–2009.
Lucerne Poster Scene (Neubad & Südpol Posters)2007–present · Central EuropeLucerne's poster culture for small non-commercial venues (Südpol, Neubad, Treibhaus) and the Weltformat festival.
Natural Wine Label Art2007–present · Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe, Global / networkedThe labels of the natural (low-intervention) wine scene, which grew from Beaujolais into a worldwide network of small growers, bars and importers.
Polish Information Picture Book (Dwie Siostry)2008–present · Eastern EuropeMostly large-format information picture books made since 2008 by the Warsaw publisher Dwie Siostry with young illustrators led by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński, graduates of the city's Academy of Fine Arts: atlases, cross-sections, labyrinths, activity books and wordless seek-and-find board books.
Illustrated Rom-Com Book Cover (Cartoon Couple Cover)2016–present · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedThe 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.
VTuber Avatar and Stream Graphics2016–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe graphic kit of virtual YouTubers, streamers who perform behind an animated anime-style character instead of their own face.
Claymorphism & Soft 3D2020–present · Global / networkedA soft, toy-like 3D look from product design around 2020, given the name 'claymorphism' in a December 2021 article by Michał Malewicz.
Neo-Brutalism2020–present · Global / networked, North AmericaA friendly, commercial descendant of web brutalism that keeps its blunt boxes but adds candy colour: thick black outlines, hard unblurred offset shadows, flat saturated fills and chunky sans-serif type on conventional, usable layouts.

Styles that often use it 94

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

Styles that use it now and then 70

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.

Comic & cartoonin 82 of 198
Ironic & self-awarein 66 of 198
Warm & approachablein 83 of 198
Full polychromein 120 of 198
Distortion & exaggerationin 76 of 198
Stylised figurationin 148 of 198

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent