Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow New Wave Tropical: Crop one large leaf or wave and overlap only three or four differently scaled color fields
- Type
- Set in New Wave Tropical's manner (Set a short slanted sans phrase and align one edge with an irregular cut-paper boundary), and let Pacific Punk Wave's lettering (Cross a heavy grotesk and thin italic at steep angles, changing speed word by word) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in New Wave Tropical's material (Use matte flat color, rough cut-paper edges, and hand-drawn lines without photographic dimensional shadows); bring in exactly one thing from Pacific Punk Wave (Limit flat fluorescents, coarse photographs, photocopy texture, and comic linework to two or three layers).
- Colour
- Build on #E95082, #28A6A1, #E6C832 and admit one accent from #F15A91, #38A6A3, #171719.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- New Wave Tropical Do not treat African, Caribbean, or Latin cultural symbols as generic tropical decoration. Verify region and maker and state provenance when using specific imagery.
- Pacific Punk Wave Scattered shapes become a generic 1980s look. Keep the collision among Swiss order, punk, Googie, and Radical design visible.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from New Wave Tropical (style, late 1970s–mid-1990s) and their accent from Pacific Punk Wave (style, mid-1970s–early 1980s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing New Wave Tropical exists for: giving music, travel, or food promotion urban speed without tropical photography, or critically examining how 1980s commercial graphics borrowed cultural imagery. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from New Wave Tropical - Irregular fields resembling hand-cut heavy paper - Oversized leaves, birds, waves, and suns layered flat - High-saturation magenta, turquoise, yellow, green, and black - Slanted sans and hand lines following cut edges Composition: Crop one large leaf or wave and overlap only three or four differently scaled color fields. Type and lettering: Set a short slanted sans phrase and align one edge with an irregular cut-paper boundary. ## Accent comes from Pacific Punk Wave, used sparingly - Abrupt changes between heavy and light type on diagonals - High-contrast pink, turquoise, yellow, and black - Boomerangs, waves, zigzags, and comic-like shapes - A disciplined grid broken once by a kitsch image Let one material quality come from it: Limit flat fluorescents, coarse photographs, photocopy texture, and comic linework to two or three layers. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #E6C832, carry the structure in #28A6A1 and #E95082, and let a single accent come from #F15A91. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: exhilaration, play, rebellion. ## What goes wrong - New Wave Tropical: Do not treat African, Caribbean, or Latin cultural symbols as generic tropical decoration. Verify region and maker and state provenance when using specific imagery. - Pacific Punk Wave: Scattered shapes become a generic 1980s look. Keep the collision among Swiss order, punk, Googie, and Radical design visible. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- New Wave Tropical late 1970s–mid-1990s / Style / Illustration Styles
A commercial graphic style adding rainforests, hot color, and irregular cut-paper shapes to the free typography of Pacific Punk Wave. Leaves, birds, waves, and suns become large urban graphic fragments rather than realistic tropical scenes.
- Pacific Punk Wave mid-1970s–early 1980s / Style / Regional Graphics
A US West Coast graphic style mixing punk, Swiss New Wave, Italian Radical design, and 1950s kitsch. Strict typography is deliberately derailed by diagonals, waves, neon color, and comic imagery.
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