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 Scanimate: One element on black, stretched from far to near
- Type
- Set in Scanimate's manner (Heavy single letters lit from inside their own outline), and let Test Card's lettering (Minimal monospaced lettering carrying only a name and a value) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Scanimate's material (Scanlines and rainbow bleed, with color fringing left on the edges); bring in exactly one thing from Test Card (Primary bars and a neutral step wedge, no intermediate colors).
- Colour
- Build on #f5f0ff, #ff3ea5, #06060e and admit one accent from #b4b4b0, #12b3ae, #101010.
Where they fight
- Scanimate and Test Card both belong to Broadcast Design, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Scanimate Layering glow and scanlines on top while the undulation itself still moves with the smooth interpolation of today's tools.
- Test Card Borrowing only the nostalgia and distorting the circles and grids until the image can no longer measure anything at all.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Scanimate (technique, 1969–1980s) and their accent from Test Card (style, 1934–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Scanimate exists for: rebuilding the air of 1970s and 80s television as a deliberate effect, or giving a logo the unstable glow and stretch that digital tools lack. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Scanimate - Glowing outlines - Electronic undulation - Rainbow glow - Scanline texture Composition: One element on black, stretched from far to near. Type and lettering: Heavy single letters lit from inside their own outline. ## Accent comes from Test Card, used sparingly - Color bars - Concentric circles and grids - A skin-tone reference image - Waveform test patterns Let one material quality come from it: Primary bars and a neutral step wedge, no intermediate colors. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f5f0ff, carry the structure in #ff3ea5 and #06060e, and let a single accent come from #12b3ae. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, nostalgia, exhilaration, calm. ## Where they fight - Scanimate and Test Card both belong to Broadcast Design, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Scanimate: Layering glow and scanlines on top while the undulation itself still moves with the smooth interpolation of today's tools. - Test Card: Borrowing only the nostalgia and distorting the circles and grids until the image can no longer measure anything at all. ## 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
- Scanimate 1969–1980s / Technique / Broadcast Design
An analog video synthesizer that distorted images on a CRT electrically and in real time. It is the true source of the glowing, flying, undulating logos of 1970s and 80s television, and it carried the motion industry before digital.
- Test Card 1934– / Style / Broadcast Design
The calibration image broadcast during setup and downtime. Color bars, grids, circles and skin-tone references answered an engineering necessity, yet they became a public geometry lodged in a generation's memory.
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