Digital native · 2010–present · North America, Global / networked
CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design)
Also known as CalArts look, Cal Arts style
A pejorative, disputed label for the rounded character design of 2010s American TV animation: big heads, dot or sliver eyes, thin limbs, soft uniform outlines and flat candy colours. Renzetti calls it meaningless name-calling; Muto calls it oversimplifying and vague. It lumps very different shows together and is partly a fan-culture proxy. Visual traits are an editorial synthesis, not from the cited article.
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01
How it works
- Build characters from soft primitives: a large round head on a small body with thin, simple limbs.
- Reduce faces to dot or sliver eyes and a flexible bean-shaped mouth that carries the acting.
- Draw every figure with one uniform, soft outline and fill it with flat colour.
- Set characters against simplified flat or painterly backgrounds that stay quieter than the figures.
- Choose pastel-to-candy palettes and keep shapes simple enough to be redrawn consistently by a whole crew.
United States. A contested label for the character look of 2010s American TV cartoons on Cartoon Network and Disney Channel, such as Adventure Time (Pendleton Ward), Gravity Falls (Alex Hirsch), Regular Show (J.G. Quintel), We Bare Bears (Daniel Chong) and Amphibia (Matt Braly), many made by California Institute of the Arts alumni. Not every work cited under the label is by a CalArts graduate: Steven Universe (Rebecca Sugar), Luca and Turning Red are listed as non-CalArts works, while Over the Garden Wall and Inside Job are listed as CalArts-made yet look very different. The term reportedly circulated in the animation industry from the early 1990s and spread outside it largely through John Kricfalusi; his 2010 blog post (now deleted) was about Brad Bird's The Iron Giant and young animators copying surface traits of late-1950s to 1970s Disney films, not the rounded look later called by the name. Wikipedia does not say who coined the term. Baker-Whitelaw (Daily Dot) wrote that fans mostly deride the label when a show is seen as promoting progressive 'Tumblr culture'. Renzetti said it is applied so broadly it is meaningless as criticism and amounts to name-calling; Muto said it oversimplifies animation design and is too vague.
02
Its design choices
From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.
- Layout & composition
- Space & hierarchy
- Typography
- Colour
- Form & shape
- Surface & texture
- Imagery
- Medium & production
- Tone & intent
- Avoids
- Naturalistic depiction, Angular & zigzag, Chrome & 3D render, Gloss & highlights, Straight photography, 3D render, Horror vacui, Abundant decoration, Dark ground
Palette
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Typefaces
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Hand-drawn show-title lettering
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Rounded sans-serifs
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Custom brush and marker lettering
Known for
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Adventure Time
Pendleton Ward, premiered 2010
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Gravity Falls
Alex Hirsch
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Regular Show
J.G. Quintel
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Steven Universe
Rebecca Sugar
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We Bare Bears
Daniel Chong
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Amphibia
Matt Braly
03
Make something in this style
Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design)’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.
04
Where it comes from, and what it’s close to
Before it
The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.
After it
The styles that grew out of it.
No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.
Alike in its design choices
Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.
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05
Often taken for
CalArts Style has no real works recorded yet, so these are its nearest styles by its choices alone, with the choices that tell them apart.
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Corporate Memphis
2 of Corporate Memphis’s 6 real works fit CalArts Style’s choices slightly better than their own: 'Rainbow reader' illustration for the Save to Pocket… and 'Eleccions al Parlament de Catalunya - 12 de maig | ERTA'.
Choices that tell CalArts Style and Corporate Memphis apart Choice CalArts Style Corporate Memphis Comic & cartoon defining — Distortion & exaggeration occasional defining Rounded & pill defining occasional Squiggles & confetti — characteristic Geometric primitives characteristic — Both descend from Bauhaus in the family tree.
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Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning (LINE)
Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning is one of CalArts Style’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell CalArts Style and Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning apart Choice CalArts Style Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning Rounded & pill defining occasional Distortion & exaggeration occasional defining Flat vector illustration defining occasional Squiggles & confetti — characteristic Pastel characteristic — CalArts Style borrowed from Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning, but neither descends from the other.
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Flash Vector Cartoon (Newgrounds-Era Web Animation)
Flash Vector Cartoon is one of CalArts Style’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell CalArts Style and Flash Vector Cartoon apart Choice CalArts Style Flash Vector Cartoon Painterly illustration occasional avoids Dark ground avoids occasional Painterly brushwork occasional avoids Gloss & highlights avoids occasional Pastel characteristic — CalArts Style descends from Flash Vector Cartoon: a shared line, so the likeness is inherited.
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Rubber-Hose Revival (Cartoon Mascot Graphics)
Rubber-Hose Revival is one of CalArts Style’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell CalArts Style and Rubber-Hose Revival apart Choice CalArts Style Rubber-Hose Revival Flat vector illustration defining — Distortion & exaggeration occasional defining Pastel characteristic — Limited spot colours — characteristic Biomorphic curves characteristic — No shared descent in the atlas: they reached these choices separately.
— means the choice isn’t among the style’s recorded choices. Critics recorded each work’s choices with the styles’ descriptions in view, so this shows whether the descriptions hold together, not proof that they are right.
06
Combine it with
Styles CalArts Style (Rounded Cartoon Character Design) pairs well with or plays against, from the research. Each is worked out as a combination: which style gives the type, the colours and the forms.
- Corporate Memphis Pairs well · Both use flat fills and simplified figures; borrow its pastel UI-illustration palette, but keep faces and expressions, which Corporate Memphis drops.
- Flash Vector Cartoon (Newgrounds-Era Web Animation) Pairs well · Direct precursor: both build flat-vector, rounded characters with even strokes that a crew can redraw and tween; this style adds sliver or dot eyes and softer, thinner-limbed proportions.
- Chat Reaction-Sticker Cartooning (LINE) Pairs well · Reduced faces and bold soft outlines carry emotion at small sizes, so character designs translate well into stickers and avatars.
- Rubber-Hose Revival (Cartoon Mascot Graphics) Contrasts · Inkier, pie-eyed, nostalgic 1930s mascot drawing against thin-limbed, flat-coloured, contemporary character design.
- UPA & Cartoon Modern Contrasts · Mid-century angular, graphic stylisation against soft rounded forms; mixing them gives a more designed, less generic look.
07
Sources
- Wikipedia, CalArts style (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalArts_style), for the term's history, Kricfalusi's 2010 post, the Renzetti and Muto objections, the Baker-Whitelaw (Daily Dot) critique and the CalArts / non-CalArts show lists; it describes no visual traits
- Wikipedia, Adventure Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time), Amphibia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibia_(TV_series)) and Steven Universe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Universe), for premiere dates, networks and creators
- Visual traits and the palette are an editorial synthesis from the shows themselves; the palette is illustrative, not sampled from any show
How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.