A dictionary of design styles, written from the works themselves.
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Search by style name or describe what you are making. Name matches come first; purpose, desired effect and medium add relevant alternatives.
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385
自動ピアノロール / 1896–1930s / Style / Notation Systems
A recording medium of rolled paper on which the punched holes are the performance itself. It marks the turn from scores read by people to codes read by machines, and it is the ancestor of the punch card and the digital sequencer.
Rows of perforations / The scrolling roll / Machine-readable music / Performance physically recorded
386
スペクトログラム / 1940s– / Technique / Diagrammatic Expression
A visualization that maps sound onto a plane of time, frequency and intensity. From birdsong research to the DAW screen it became the standard way to see the shape of a sound, and artists have since taken to hiding pictures inside it.
The time-frequency plane / Intensity as shading / Voiceprint patterns / Hidden-image play
387
サイマティクス / 1787– / Technique / Diagrammatic Expression
The experiment of seeing sound as a pattern in matter, beginning with the Chladni figures that sand draws on a vibrating plate. Each frequency brings out its own geometry, which makes this the oldest device for witnessing how sound and form correspond.
Chladni figures / Standing waves in sand and powder / A pattern for every frequency / The directness of the apparatus
388
ラバノーテーション / 1928– / Style / Notation Systems
A notation that turns bodily movement into one vertical staff read from the bottom upward. The shape of a symbol carries direction, its shading carries level, its length carries duration, and its position across the staff says which part of the body moves.
Symbols stacked without gaps on a vertical staff read from the bottom upward / Symbol shapes giving nine directions, with the centre line separating right from left / Shading inside each symbol standing for low, middle or high level / Symbol length equal to duration, with tick marks for beats and bar lines crossing the staff
389
折り図 / 1950s– / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
The dotted-line-and-arrow language systematized by Akira Yoshizawa for writing three-dimensional folding onto flat pages. Mountain and valley folds read across languages, and the crease pattern became an object of mathematics.
Mountain and valley line styles / Arrows guiding each step / Sequential step diagrams / The geometry of crease patterns
390
編み図 / 19th century– / Style / Notation Systems
The sheet music of handwork, where stitches become symbols laid out on a grid. Japan's JIS stitch symbols compress each operation into one figure, so the pattern is visible before it is read, unlike the written-out instructions relied on in the West.
The grid of stitch symbols / One stitch, one symbol / Row and stitch coordinates / Correspondence to the finished fabric
391
点字 / 1824– / Style / Symbol Systems
A tactile writing system Louis Braille designed at fifteen, giving every letter a two-by-three cell of dots. Sizing that cell to a single fingertip is a rare case of ergonomics and typography arriving at the same answer.
The 2x3 dot cell / Dimensions fit to the fingertip / Left-to-right tactile reading / The materiality of embossing
392
国際信号旗 / 1857– / Style / Symbol Systems
The flag system for spelling letters and set phrases at sea. High-contrast geometry chosen solely for distant legibility became a masterpiece collection of abstraction born from function.
High-contrast geometry / Designed for distance / One flag, one letter / Hoists strung to the masthead
393
天気図 / 1851– / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
The atmosphere drawn on one sheet with isobars, front symbols and weather signs. Making invisible pressure fields visible through the density of curves became the public's scientific graphic, from newspapers to television.
The density of isobars / Cold and warm front symbols / The weather-symbol system / Highs and lows labeled
394
回路図 / 1890s– / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
An engineering language that draws circuits with standardized symbols and orthogonal lines. Discarding physical placement to record only connection, it arrived at a topological way of drawing well before the transit map did.
Standardized component symbols / Orthogonal wiring / Junction dots / Abstraction from physical layout
395
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フローチャート / 1921– / Layout / Diagrammatic Expression
The Gilbreths invented this process diagram for work analysis. Its grammar of shapes gives a diamond to every decision and a rectangle to every process, and by way of programming it became the common language for thinking in steps.
A grammar of shapes / The decision diamond / Arrows of flow / Start and end terminals
396
洗濯表示 / 1958– / Style / Symbol Systems
Four figures, the tub, the triangle, the square and the circle, carry garment care across any border. Washing, bleaching, drying and ironing all compress onto a tag a few millimeters wide, information design worked at the smallest possible area.
Tub, triangle, square and circle / The prohibition X and temperature dots / Compression into millimeters / International standardization
397
錬金術記号 / medieval–18th century / Style / Symbol Systems
The signs that recorded substances and operations between secrecy and sharing. The system binding planets to metals vanished into chemical notation, but survives as the graphics of mystery, quoted to this day.
Planet-metal correspondences / Geometry composed with crosses / Cipher-like secrecy / Tables handed down
398
校正記号 / 16th century– / Technique / Symbol Systems
A sign language that corrects a typeset page through dialogue with its margins. The back-and-forth of deletion and stet, and the Western dele, were refined alongside the history of printing into an editing protocol that stands behind every typeset work, this dictionary included.
Lines pairing text and margin / Deletion and restoration exchanges / Insertion and transposition signs / The hierarchy of red
399
アクア / 2000–2014 / Style / Apple UI
Mac OS X's design language of buttons you want to lick. Jelly gloss, pinstripes, deep shadows and the genie effect staged digital components as objects you could touch, and set the terms for UI throughout the 2000s. What the web made of it with images is Web 2.0 Gloss.
Gel-gloss buttons / Pinstriped grounds / Deep drop shadows / Metaphors of water and light
400
ルナ / 2001–2006 / Style / Microsoft UI
Windows XP's look: blue taskbar, green Start button, rounded windows and a meadow wallpaper repainting the gray office machine as household optimism.
The blue taskbar / The green Start button / Rounded frames / Meadow-and-sky optimism
401
エアロ / 2006–2012 / Style / Microsoft UI
The translucent glass UI of Vista and 7: frosted window frames, live thumbnails and GPU-composited depth making 'through glass' the OS's standard vocabulary.
Frosted frames / Reflections and highlights / Live thumbnails / GPU-composited depth
402
メトロ / 2010–2015 / Style / Microsoft UI
Windows Phone's flat language, which cast type rather than icons in the lead role. Large typography, flat-color live tiles and layouts that run off the edge of the screen transplanted the clarity of transit signage into UI, opening the flat era ahead of iOS 7.
Type as the hero / Flat-color tiles / Compositions running off-screen / Chrome eliminated
403
ブラシドメタル / 1999–2007 / Style / Apple UI
The hairline-metal windows of iTunes and Safari: a skeuomorphic branch that speaks an app's purpose through material, bringing pro-gear trust to the desktop.
Hairline metal surfaces / Rivet-like details / Equipment metaphors / Gray tonal ranges
404
ヴォーティシズム / 1914–1918 / Style / Avant-garde
Britain's avant-garde detonated in the magazine BLAST: diagonal machine-cut lines, blunt heavy type and lists of blasts and blessings turning typography into a declaration of war.
Diagonal machine-cut lines / Blunt heavy type / The BLAST/BLESS lists / The dynamics of the vortex
405
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コブラ / 1948–1951 / Style / Avant-garde
A postwar avant-garde that linked Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Holding up the directness of children's drawings and folk art, it painted rough-brushed creatures in primary colors and turned distrust of refinement into an international style.
The directness of children's drawing / Rough-brushed creatures / Colliding primaries / The refusal of planning
406
エミグレ / 1984–2005 / Style / Type Classification
The magazine and foundry that turned digital coarseness into an aesthetic the moment the Mac appeared: bitmap faces, colliding layers and a defense of difficulty at the center of the 1990s design debates.
Bitmap typefaces / Colliding layers / An experiment per issue / Challenges to readability
407
アメリカ近代ブックジャケット / 1940s–1950s / Style / Publishing and Editing
The jacket style Lustig built at New Directions: suggestion by sign and abstraction instead of illustration, turning literary covers into small modern artworks and raising postwar American book design.
Abstract suggestion of content / Compositions of sign and shape / Hand lettering with type / Series coherence
408
恩地孝四郎の装幀 / 1910s–1950s / Style / Publishing and Editing
Book design that treats the cover as a print in its own right rather than as a frame for a picture. Representational illustration gives way to abstract shapes and flat colour, and the title lettering sits inside that surface as one of its parts.
Covers built only from abstract shapes and flat colour, with no representational illustration / Title lettering drawn by hand rather than set in type, sitting on the same surface as the image / Few colours, with form made by overlapping planes instead of outlines / The bare colour of the paper left showing, with the image laid straight onto it
IndexStyle is not a list of every term used around design. An independent entry must describe a visual language that can be recognised, reproduced and distinguished from its neighbours. Editorial standard