Stylogenyin the style of Memphis Design

Postmodern · 1981–1988 · Southern Europe

Memphis Design

Also known as Memphis Group, Memphis Milano

The Milan collective founded by Ettore Sottsass, whose furniture, laminates and objects (first shown in September 1981) became a graphic language of their own. Clashing colours, speckles, squiggles, zigzags and primitive geometric shapes were combined with deliberate bad taste, mocking modernist good form while quoting 1950s kitsch, Pop and Art Deco.

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A dense geometric pattern on a pink background combines turquoise polka-dot triangles, yellow squares with black dashes, blue circles with yellow sprinkles, orange-red zigzags, and scattered squiggles and small shapes. Bold black offset shapes give many motifs a shadowed, layered appearance.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Build compositions from primitive solids (circles, triangles, cylinders) stacked or scattered without a grid.
  • Clash saturated and pastel colours deliberately: pink against black, mint against red, yellow against blue.
  • Cover surfaces with printed pattern (squiggles, speckles, zigzags, dot grids) as if they were laminate.
  • Mock good taste by quoting 1950s kitsch, Art Deco and suburban décor with knowing irony.
  • Outline shapes in black and keep colour flat, like a cartoon of a design object.

Milan, Italy

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
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Modular grid, Monochrome, Earth & mineral, Naturalistic depiction, Ornament-free, Floral & vegetal, Rational & objective, Calm & contemplative

Palette

  • #f7a1c4
  • #2ec4b6
  • #ffd23f
  • #111111
  • #2a52be
  • #ff5a36

Typefaces

  • Futura

  • ITC Avant Garde Gothic

  • Hand-cut geometric display lettering

Known for

  • Ettore Sottsass

    Carlton room divider, 1981; Bacterio laminate pattern

  • Nathalie Du Pasquier

    textile and laminate patterns

  • George Sowden

  • Michele De Lucchi

  • Peter Shire

  • Christoph Radl

    Memphis furniture graphics, 1981–83

  • Abet Laminati

    printed plastic laminates

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Memphis Design’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

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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.

This styleMemphis Design1981–1988 · Southern Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. Barbara Radice, Memphis: Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design (1984)
  2. Stedelijk Museum collection, Christoph Radl, Memphis 81 Furniture-Milano (1981)
  3. Philip B. Meggs & Alston W. Purvis, Meggs' History of Graphic Design

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.