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 Web Brutalism: Drop the columns, stack in one vertical run, divide with rules and space
- Type
- Set in Web Brutalism's manner (Keep the default face and push only the headings to full page width), and let Web 1.0's lettering (System sans and monospace) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Web Brutalism's material (White or one flat ground, images left compressed and placed at actual size); bring in exactly one thing from Web 1.0 (White background, blue links, dithered images).
- Colour
- Build on #ffffff, #0000ee, #000000 and admit one accent from #c9c9c9, #0000ee, #111111.
Where they fight
Nothing obvious pulls against itself here.
Caution
- Web Brutalism Tidying only the margins and line lengths while posing as the browser default makes the plainness read as staging, and readers quit while still hunting for a reason behind the mess.
- Web 1.0 Don't regress actual accessibility. Separate the look from interaction quality.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Web Brutalism (style, 2014–) and their accent from Web 1.0 (style, 1990s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Web Brutalism exists for: gallery and label announcements that choose speed of information over polish, or putting deliberate distance between you and template-built competitors. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Web Brutalism - Default headings and links - Blue underlined links - Extreme jumps in size - Rules and white space without ornament Composition: Drop the columns, stack in one vertical run, divide with rules and space. Type and lettering: Keep the default face and push only the headings to full page width. ## Accent comes from Web 1.0, used sparingly - Blue links - Low-res GIFs - System fonts - Plain buttons Let one material quality come from it: White background, blue links, dithered images. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ffffff, carry the structure in #0000ee and #000000, and let a single accent come from #0000ee. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, trust, nostalgia, play. ## What goes wrong - Web Brutalism: Tidying only the margins and line lengths while posing as the browser default makes the plainness read as staging, and readers quit while still hunting for a reason behind the mess. - Web 1.0: Don't regress actual accessibility. Separate the look from interaction quality. ## 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
- Web Brutalism 2014– / Style / UI Expression
Puts the browser's default rendering straight on screen and refuses the finished look of templates. The bare structure of the HTML becomes the style itself.
- Web 1.0 1990s / Style / Digital Retro
Reuses the naivety of the constrained early web as directness and charm. In the 2020s it came back as a movement to take the personal site back, gathering under names like Neocities and Yesterweb.
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