Form & shape · Representation
Stylised figuration
Simplified, flattened people and objects.
A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under form & shape: what is the shape language?
- styles make it
- 239
- as a defining choice
- 104
- as a usual one
- 94
- now and then
- 41
- avoid it
- 5
Styles defined by it 104
For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.
- Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic & Register CompositionThe visual system of pharaonic Egypt, in which writing is made of pictures and pictures are ruled like writing.
- 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.
- Javanese Wayang Kulit (Tatah Sungging)The visual language of Javanese shadow puppets: flat figures cut from buffalo parchment, with head and legs in profile, shoulders turned to the front and long jointed arms worked by horn rods.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Persian Popular Narrative (Lithographs & Coffeehouse Painting)Iran's popular picture-stories in two media.
- Mexican Popular Graphics (Posada)Cheap broadsheets, chapbooks and gazettes sold on the streets of Porfirian Mexico City by the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo and illustrated by Manuel Manilla and José Guadalupe Posada.
- 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.
- Guna MolaThe reverse-appliqué blouse panels of Guna women in Panama, made by cutting through two to seven stacked layers of cotton so that every shape is ringed by echoing bands of the colours beneath.
- Senegalese Sufi Devotional Imagery (Souwère Glass Painting and Amadou Bamba Portraits)The devotional imagery of Senegal's Sufi brotherhoods, above all the Mourides: reverse paintings on glass (souwère), made in Senegal's cities since about 1900, and the murals, banners, prints and photocopies that multiply one 1913 photograph of Sheikh Amadou Bamba across Dakar and Touba.
- Taishō Roman & Lyrical IllustrationThe lyrical illustration (jojōga) of late-Meiji to early-Shōwa Japan, led by Takehisa Yumeji: willowy, large-eyed women in kimono drawn with an Art Nouveau contour, set among camellias and kimono patterns and lettered by hand.
- Vietnamese Propaganda Poster (Tranh cổ động)The state poster art of Vietnam from the 1945 August Revolution to today.
- 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.
- Atelier Populaire (May '68 Screenprint Poster)The posters of the Atelier populaire, set up when students, teachers and artists occupied the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 14 May 1968, until police cleared the school on 27 June.
- Pardhan Gond Painting (Jangarh Kalam)Painting on paper and canvas by Pardhan Gond artists of Patangarh and Bhopal, begun when Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, recruited Jangarh Singh Shyam in 1981; the style was later named Jangarh Kalam after him.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- VTuber Avatar and Stream GraphicsThe graphic kit of virtual YouTubers, streamers who perform behind an animated anime-style character instead of their own face.
- Lo-fi Anime AestheticThe look of YouTube's 24/7 lo-fi hip hop streams.
- 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 often use it 94
A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.
- Hebrew MicrographyA Jewish scribal art in which lines of minute Hebrew script, usually the Masoretic notes that guard the biblical text, are written so that the line itself draws: interlaced frames and star rosettes on full carpet pages, and animals, knights, fish and grotesques in the margins.
- Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture (Pecha & Prayer Flags)Tibetan Buddhist and Bön woodblock printing, from the first printed Kangyur (1410, cut in China) and the 15th-century presses of Gungthang to the great printing houses of Narthang, Derge and Lhasa.
- Sápmi Graphic Identity (Duodji & Gákti Colour Code)Duodji is Sámi handicraft: hard work in wood, horn and bone, soft work in skin and cloth; drums painted with alder-bark figures survive from the 17th and 18th centuries.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Bezalel SchoolThe house style of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, opened in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz in 1906 with E.
- 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).
- Italian FuturismLaunched by Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Futurism glorified speed, machines, the city and war, and turned the printed page into an explosive, noisy field.
- 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).
- 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.
- Nippon Kōbō & Tōhōsha Photo-Propaganda Magazines (NIPPON & FRONT)Luxury photo-propaganda magazines that imperial Japan sent abroad, 1934–45.
- Pakistani Truck ArtThe total decoration of Pakistan's trucks and buses, which grew from company marks and saints' portraits painted in the late 1940s into a workshop art in which painters, metalworkers, woodcarvers and reflective-tape specialists collaborate on each vehicle.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Roots Reggae Sleeve Art & Rasta IconographyThe record sleeves of roots reggae, from Catch a Fire (1973) until dancehall took over in the 1980s.
- 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.
- 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.
- Indonesian Woodcut Activism (Taring Padi)The protest graphics of Taring Padi, the collective founded by students and activists in Yogyakarta in 1998 as Suharto fell, and of the punk and activist woodcut scenes around it.
- Internet Ugly & Meme VernacularA deliberately amateur image dialect of forums, imageboards and social feeds, named 'Internet Ugly' by Nick Douglas in 2014.
Styles that use it now and then 41
An occasional choice in these styles.
- Amazigh Sign System & Tifinaghc. 0–present
- Kamon (Japanese Family Crests)c. 1100–present
- Gothic Blackletter & Fraktur Traditionc. 1180–present
- Renaissance Book Typographyc. 1460–1600
- Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori Design1500–present
- Batik Pattern Tradition1600–present
- Diné (Navajo) Weaving Design1700–present
- Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design1700–present
- Chaekgeori & Minhwa Screen Painting1776–present
- Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering1800–present
- Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas)1845–present
- Indian Calendar & Bazaar Art1878–present
- Basel Object Poster (Swiss Sachplakat)1919–1955
- Filipino Komiks1929–1999
- Egyptian Painted Film Poster1932–1996
- Penguin Paperback Design (Three Bands to the Marber Grid)1935–1972
- Ndebele Geometric Painting1940–present
- Onitsha Market Pamphlets1947–1980
- Bonelli Fumetto (Italian Popular Adventure Comics)1948–present
- Hong Kong Neon & Beiwei Shop-Sign Lettering1950–present
- Taiwan Floral Cloth (Huabu)1950–present
- Finnish Bold Print (Marimekko Modernism)1951–present
- Vicente Rojo & Mexican Editorial Modernism1953–1990
- Situationist Détournement Graphics1956–1972
- Indian Institutional Modernism (NID)1961–1990
- Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism1964–present
- Western Desert Iconography1971–present
- Lebanese Civil War Party Poster1975–1990
- Dutch Expressive Postmodernism (Studio Dumbar & Hard Werken)1977–1994
- City Pop Illustration1979–present
- Jamaican Dancehall Signs & Sleeve Art1980–present
- Solidarność & Polish Underground Graphics1980–1989
- Out-of-Square Hangul Typography1985–present
- Matatu & Nganya Art1990–present
- South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi)1995–present
- Cartonera Books (Latin American Cardboard Publishing)2003–present
- Neo-Andean Architecture (Cholets)2005–present
- Lucerne Poster Scene (Neubad & Südpol Posters)2007–present
- Analog Horror Graphics2015–present
- Weirdcore & Dreamcore2019–present
- Palestinian Watermelon and Keffiyeh Graphics2021–present
It often goes with
Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.
- Line illustrationin 146 of 239
- Folk & sacred symbolsin 116 of 239
- Hand-letteringin 193 of 239
- Comic & cartoonin 93 of 239
- Framed panelsin 139 of 239
- Single focal pointin 176 of 239
Styles that avoid it
Styles that deliberately leave it out.