# Moomin Graphics (Tove Jansson's Pen-Drawn World and its Licensed Afterlife)

> The pen-and-ink world of Tove Jansson's Moomin books (1945-1977) and newspaper strip (1947-1975): round, white, snouted trolls drawn in a sure, fine black line, small against hatched forests, seas and night skies, in strips of framed panels with hand-lettered balloons. Her drawings are small and mostly black ink on white paper, with a second, full-colour gouache mode in three picture books. Since 1990 Arabia's mugs and other licensed goods adapt single drawings onto white grounds with one or two soft flat colours, turning one artist's hand into a living graphic system.

- Period: 1945–present
- Where: Northern Europe, Global / networked
- Origin: Helsinki: Tove Jansson (1914-2001), who drew for the Swedish-language satirical magazine Garm from 1929 until it closed in 1953, published the first Moomin book in 1945 (Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, The Moomins and the Great Flood). The Moomin comic strip first ran in 1947 in the children's section of the Finnish paper Ny Tid and reached English readers in the London Evening News in 1954; Tove drew it alone until 1959, shared it with her brother Lars Jansson until 1961, and Lars carried it alone until it ended in 1975. Arabia has made Moomin tableware since the 1950s and the present mugs, designed by Tove Slotte on Kaj Franck's Teema shape, since 1990, from Tove and Lars Jansson's drawings; the Japanese-Dutch-Finnish anime Tanoshii Mūmin Ikka followed in 1990-91. The Jansson family keeps the rights, and Sophia Jansson, Lars's daughter, directs the characters' art.
- Branch: Pictorial & machine age
- Also known as: Moomin style, Tove Jansson illustration, Mumintrollen graphics, Muumi
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/moomin-graphics/

## Use it with care

The Moomin characters, names and drawings are protected and licensed by the Jansson family's company; use the drawing approach (fine ink line, round figures, hatched landscape, one or two soft colours) rather than copying the characters or implying an official Moomin product.

## How it works

- Draw the characters as round, soft-cornered white bodies closed by one sure, fine black ink line, with almost no interior modelling, so they read at a glance against any ground.
- Build the world around them in the same pen: hatch forests, sea, rain and night skies with dense fine lines and texture, and keep figures small against large weather and landscape when the mood turns lonely or uncanny.
- Work in black ink on white paper at close to printed size, and let the white of the page stand for snow, sky and the bodies of the trolls; in the picture books (1952, 1960, 1977) switch to full gouache and watercolour colour, with whole pages of saturated hue.
- Tell the newspaper story in a row of ruled panels with hand-lettered balloons, gentle and wry rather than shouting, and turn the satire on guests, fashions and high society rather than on the powerful.
- Frame chapters with small vignettes, flower wreaths and maps of the valley rather than heavy borders, and leave generous white around them.
- When the drawings leave the book, build the design from Jansson's own drawings, one figure or scene on a white ground with one or two soft flat colours, keeping her line rather than redrawing the characters in a new style.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (characteristic)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (characteristic)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (occasional)
- [Organic flow](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/organic-flow/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Sequential narrative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/sequential-narrative/) (defining)
- [Generous white space](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/generous-white-space/) (characteristic)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (characteristic)
- [Illusion of depth](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/illusion-of-depth/) (occasional)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (characteristic)
- [Humanist & Garalde serif](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/humanist-and-garalde-serif/) (occasional)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (defining)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (defining)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (characteristic)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (occasional)
- [Pastel](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pastel/) (occasional)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (occasional)
- [Dark ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dark-ground/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Rounded & pill](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rounded-and-pill/) (defining)
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (defining)
- [Biomorphic curves](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/biomorphic-curves/) (characteristic)
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (occasional)
- [Painterly brushwork](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-brushwork/) (occasional)
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (characteristic)
- [Floral & vegetal](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/floral-and-vegetal/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Comic & cartoon](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/comic-and-cartoon/) (defining)
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (characteristic)

### Medium & production
- [Pen, brush & ink](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pen-brush-and-ink/) (defining)
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Warm & approachable](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/warm-and-approachable/) (defining)
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (characteristic)
- [Romantic & sensual](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/romantic-and-sensual/) (characteristic)
- [Calm & contemplative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/calm-and-contemplative/) (characteristic)
- [Ironic & self-aware](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ironic-and-self-aware/) (occasional)
- [Nostalgic & retro](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/nostalgic-and-retro/) (occasional)

Avoids: Distortion & exaggeration, Angular & zigzag, Blackletter, Experimental & distorted, Agitational & persuasive, Technological & futurist, Fluorescent & neon, Gradients, Gloss & highlights, Halftone & Ben-Day dots, Straight photography, Photomontage, Abundant decoration

Palette: #f6f3ea, #1d1d1b, #4f7fae, #a9c7a1, #d2483a, #e6c26a

Typefaces: Hand-lettering in speech balloons and captions, the newspaper comic-strip tradition, Old-style book serif for the running text of the novels, the classic book-typography tradition, Hand-drawn titling on picture books, covers and licensed goods

Known for: Tove Jansson, The Moomins and the Great Flood (Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, 1945), the first Moomin book; its ink-wash illustration of the round, turreted Moominhouse is the earliest known (Moomin Museum, Tampere); Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), the book that made her famous, and Moominland Midwinter (1957); Tove Jansson, the first Moomin comic strip, in the children's section of Ny Tid (1947), held in the Moominvalley Collection of Tampere Art Museum; Tove Jansson, Moomin strip in the London Evening News (from 1954), reprinted in black and white by Drawn & Quarterly from 2006; Tove Jansson, picture books The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My (1952), Who Will Comfort Toffle? (1960) and The Dangerous Journey (1977); Tove Jansson, cover cartoons for Garm, including the October 1944 cover lampooning Hitler, and her illustrations for the Swedish editions of Tolkien's The Hobbit (1962) and Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Arabia Moomin mugs (from 1990), designed by Tove Slotte on Kaj Franck's Teema shape from Tove and Lars Jansson's drawings, three to five new designs a year

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Alike in its design choices: [L'Association and French Alternative Comics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/l-association-comics.md) (1990–present), 71% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Korean Commercial Calligraphy (Kaelligeurapi)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/korean-commercial-calligraphy.md) (1999–present), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Lianhuanhua Picture-Story Books](https://stylogeny.com/styles/lianhuanhua.md) (1925–1990), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Natural Wine Label Art](https://stylogeny.com/styles/natural-wine-label.md) (2007–present), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Bengali Modernist Book Cover (Prachchhad)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/bengali-book-cover.md) (1943–present), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cairo-beirut-book-design.md) (1952–1990), 62% alike

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tove_Jansson
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin_mugs
- https://www.muumimuseo.fi/en/the-museum/moomin-collection/
- https://www.muumimuseo.fi/en/news/tove-janssons-first-illustration-of-the-moomin-house-is-the-highlight-of-the-moomin-museums-renewed-main-exhibition
- https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/moomin-book-one/

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Moomin Graphics (Tove Jansson's Pen-Drawn World and its Licensed Afterlife)”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/moomin-graphics/