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Tone & intent · Emotion

Warm & approachable

Friendly, inclusive, human-scaled.

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

styles make it: 116
as a defining choice: 13
as a usual one: 54
now and then: 49
avoid it: 4

Styles defined by it 13

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

Scandinavian Functionalism1930–present · Northern EuropeNordic functionalism (funkis) arrived in graphic form with Sigurd Lewerentz's posters and winged emblem for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition.
Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism1951–1965 · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe picture magazine of Black urban Africa in the 1950s.
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.
Global Village Coffeehouse1988–2003 · North AmericaThe faux-naive, earth-toned illustration style that late-1980s American designers set against Memphis, and that chain cafés, bookstores, packaging and clip art spread through the 1990s.
Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi)1999–present · East AsiaBrush-written Hangul made for commerce, not the scroll.
Modern Calligraphy and Brush Lettering2005–present · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedThe loose pointed-pen and brush-pen script of wedding stationery and the 2010s craft boom.
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.
Slow-Living Editorial (the Kinfolk Look)2011–present · North America, Northern Europe, Global / networkedThe look of Kinfolk, the slow-living quarterly founded in Portland in 2011 and run from Copenhagen since 2015, and of the indie lifestyle titles and Instagram feeds that copied it.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism2012–2022 · North America, Global / networkedThe friendly, frictionless minimalism of 2010s direct-to-consumer start-ups, built for the phone screen, the Instagram feed and the unboxing.
'Good Morning' Greeting Images (WhatsApp Forward Vernacular)2013–present · South Asia, Latin America & CaribbeanThe ready-made greeting pictures that millions of smartphone users, many of them older and new to the internet, forward to family, friends and groups each morning on WhatsApp, above all in India and Brazil.
Data Humanism2014–present · Southern Europe, North America, Western EuropeAn information-design approach that draws data rather than charting it, treating numbers as personal, approximate and human.
Corporate Memphis2017–present · North America, Global / networkedThe flat vector illustration style that became the default visual voice of big tech in the late 2010s: faceless, ethnically non-specific figures with elongated limbs and tiny heads, drawn in bright flat colour among blobs, leaves and confetti.
Instagram Slideshow Activism (Social-Justice Infographics)2020–present · North America, Global / networkedThe text-led explainer slideshows that filled Instagram after George Floyd's murder in May 2020.

Styles that often use it 54

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

Styles that use it now and then 49

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.

Playful & wittyin 83 of 116
Isolated objectin 80 of 116
Measured densityin 40 of 116
Flat vector illustrationin 30 of 116
Single focal pointin 89 of 116
Comic & cartoonin 46 of 116

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent