A dictionary of design styles, written from the works themselves.
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289
メタルハート / 1995–2004 / Style / UI Expression
Early 3D software gave this fin-de-millénaire style its chrome, liquid metal, aggressive bevels and lens flare. Dressed in techno and science-fiction imagery, it ruled rave flyers and games magazines around Y2K.
Liquid-metal chrome / Aggressive bevels / Lens flares / Techno and sci-fi typography
290
シュルレアリスム / 1924–1950s / Style / Avant-garde
The movement that forced reality's objects into impossible meetings under the logic of dream and the unconscious. Dépaysement spread from painting into photography, film and advertising as the grammar of impossible adjacency.
Dépaysement / Dream perspective / Objects transformed / Precision serving absurdity
291
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ソ連映画ポスター / 1924–1932 / Style / Regional Graphics
The revolutionary-era film posters the Stenberg brothers built in lithography: photomontage-like giant faces, careening letters and violently exaggerated perspective translating cinematic motion onto a sheet of paper.
Giant faces / Careening lettering / Exaggerated perspective / Flat lithographic color
292
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アトリエ・ポピュレール / May–June 1968 / Style / Printmaking and Social Movements
In the Paris uprising of May '68 students occupied the art school and ran its print workshop. One-color silkscreens, simple figures and declarative slogans came off the press nightly under rules of anonymity, no sale and street posting, which became the prototype of protest graphics.
One-color silkscreen / Simplified figures / Declarative slogans / Anonymous mass production
293
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デヴィェトシル / 1920–1931 / Style / Publishing and Editing
Teige gave the Czech avant-garde group its picture poem. Setting photograph, type and sign together as verse, the group's lyrical strain of constructivism turned interwar Prague into a laboratory of book design.
Picture poems / Photographs fused with type / Geometry used lyrically / Constructivist bookbinding
294
旅行ポスターの黄金期 / 1890s–1930s / Style / Advertising Posters
The lithographed tourism posters railways and shipping lines competed with: idealized destination landscapes, ornamental lettering and proud route names inventing travel itself as an image of desire.
Idealized landscapes / Flat lithographic color / Ornamental lettering / Railway and line insignia
295
パルプ雑誌の表紙 / 1920s–1950s / Style / Publishing and Editing
Fiction magazines printed on cheap pulp paper competed on sensational covers. Melodramatic oil painting, the instant of peril and screaming logotypes cast the visual language of science fiction, horror and crime, which flowed on into paperbacks and comics.
Melodramatic oil painting / The instant of peril / Screaming logotypes / Primary-color sensation
296
ペンギン・ブックスの表紙 / 1935– / Style / Publishing and Editing
From the tripartite color bands of the first covers through Tschichold's composition rules to Marber's ruled grid, Penguin kept reinventing the cover as a design system. The paperback became a textbook of modern design.
Color-coded bands / Rigorous composition rules / The Marber grid / Consistency as a series
297
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フェスティバル様式 / 1951–1950s / Style / Public Design
Postwar Britain's bright modernism spreading from the 1951 festival site: thin legs, molecular patterns and light script faces turning post-austerity optimism into a national visual language.
Thin legs, light structures / Molecule and crystal patterns / Light script lettering / Festive color
298
企業モダニズム / 1950s–1970s / Style / Contemporary Branding
The golden age of corporate identity established by Rand, Chermayeff and their peers: geometric marks, gridded standards manuals and disciplined application speaking for corporations in modernism's abstract language.
Abstract geometric marks / Standards manuals / Gridded application discipline / Single-color strength
299
ITC様式 / 1970s–1980s / Style / Type Classification
New York in the phototype era produced a style of huge x-heights and tightly packed settings. Lubalin's conceptual typography and U&lc magazine staged letters as pictures and gave the period its face.
Huge x-heights / Tight-not-touching settings / Swashes and ligatures on stage / Letters as image
300
メキシコ68 / 1966–1968 / Style / Public Design
The Olympic identity Wyman built for Mexico City: concentric lines radiating from the logotype into venues, uniforms and stamps, fusing Op art with folk art and wrapping a whole city in pulsing imagery.
Radiating concentric lines / Op-art vibration / Fusion with folk art / City-scale deployment
301
ブルーノート・スタイル / 1955–1967 / Style / Music Graphics
Reid Miles turned out sleeve after sleeve for the jazz label with monochrome photography, two-color printing and boldly cropped type. Improvisation inside constraint became the graphic translation of jazz itself.
Grainy monochrome photographs / Two-color economy / Bold cropping / Improvised type layouts
302
ファクトリー・レコーズ / 1978–1992 / Style / Music Graphics
At the Manchester label Saville made sleeves that refuse to explain the music. Borrowed industrial color charts, classical paintings and waveform diagrams turned post-punk's intelligent void into a style.
Refusal to explain / Borrowed imagery from other fields / Restrained typography / Catalogue numbers as institution
303
アングラ演劇ポスター / 1965–1975 / Style / Regional Graphics
Yokoo Tadanori and his peers printed the posters for Situation Theatre and Tenjō Sajiki. Ukiyo-e, kitsch and psychedelia collide there in an excess that the world discovered as a revolt against modernism.
Ukiyo-e colliding with kitsch / Fluorescent silkscreen / Rising suns and Shōwa imagery détourned / The aesthetics of excess
304
シティポップのイラスト / 1979–1989 / 2010s revival / Style / Music Graphics
Hiroshi Nagai and Eizin Suzuki gave record sleeves a cloudless sky, a swimming pool, palm trees and a flat horizon. Vaporwave later carried this urban-resort landscape of pre-bubble longing out into the world's shared imagery.
Cloudless blue and pools / Palms and horizons / Flat airbrushed surfaces / The absence of people
305
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ACT UPのグラフィック / 1987–1990s / Style / Printmaking and Social Movements
The visual strategy of the AIDS-crisis direct-action movement. The pink triangle of SILENCE=DEATH, a clarity seized from advertising's own grammar and the principle of free reproduction forged activist graphics as strong as the ads they stood against.
The pink triangle inverted / Advertising grammar seized / Declarative typography / Free reproduction
306
エアブラシ・イラストレーション / 1970s–1980s / Technique / Illustration Styles
Compressed air lays down gradients with no visible join, and commercial illustration's golden age was built on them, rendering chrome reflections, wet gloss and idealized skin. Before digital, this was what a perfect surface meant.
Seamless gradients / Chrome and reflections / Starburst highlights / Idealized smoothness
307
アイソメトリック・ピクセルアート / 1994– / Style / Digital Image Techniques
Endless pixel cities in vanishing-point-free oblique view. eBoy's pixoramas established the mode, exporting games' isometric projection into print and advertising as a graphic language.
Isometric aerial view / No vanishing point / Modular buildings / Screen-filling density
308
クラックトロ / 1980s-1990s / Style / Digital Art
A short screen bolted to the front of cracked software as a group's calling card. An oversized group name, text scrolling without end and a run of greetings turned the home computer display into a stage.
Text scrolling endlessly across the screen / Bands of color running behind it / An oversized group name held at the center / A run of greetings naming other groups
309
ベクタースキャン / 1979–1985 / Style / Technical Expression
Game imagery drawn stroke by stroke as an electron beam traces bright lines across a vector monitor. Glowing wireframes hanging in black void carried a tension that defined how the early arcade pictured the future.
Glowing wireframes / Black void / Uniform luminous lines / Geometric tension
310
Flash黄金期のウェブ / 1998–2010 / Style / Internet Aesthetics
Thick vector outlines, tweened morphs and splash-page cursor play: the decade in which Flash gave individuals expressive power and turned the web into one animated artwork.
Thick vector outlines / Tweened transformation / Splash pages / Cursor-following play
311
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LCDゲームの様式 / 1980–1991 / Style / Digital Retro
The fixed-segment LCD screens of Game & Watch and its kin. Movement had to be told through a handful of poses etched in advance, and this art of frames, layered over a printed background, produced a picture unlike any other.
Fixed-segment figures / Two layers over printed backgrounds / Frame-step motion / Silver shells and the cross key
312
ANSIアート / 1985–1997 / Style / Lettering
Login screens and group art packs drawn in the 16-color text mode of the BBS age. Block-character shading and inter-group competition made the summit of pre-web screen decoration.
16-color text mode / Shaded block characters / Art-group signatures / The login-screen format
313
ターミナルUI / 1970s– / Style / UI Expression
The terminal look: monospaced phosphor characters on black. The VT100's green afterglow became the primal image of the computer's face, repeated from hacker cinema to modern CLI tools.
Single phosphor color on black / The monospace grid / A blinking cursor / Scanlines and glow
314
iモード絵文字 / 1998-1999 / Style / Symbol Systems
One hundred and seventy six pictographs that tell faces, weather and things apart using only the placement of dots on a twelve by twelve grid. Shigetaka Kurita drew them for NTT DOCOMO's i-mode, and MoMA holds the original set.
Figures fitted to a twelve by twelve grid / Shapes made of mass rather than of line / Set inline at the size of a letter / Faces, weather and symbols at one coarseness
315
ジェネラティブアート / 1965- / Technique / Digital Art
A way of working in which the maker writes only the rule and the randomness, leaving the drawing to the machine. As in Nees's plotter work, the result is shown as several variants born of one rule.
One simple element repeated to fill the field / Variants of a single rule shown side by side / Repetition drifting in angle and position / A density and precision no hand could reach
316
パウエル・ペラルタのデッキ図像 / 1980s / Style / Illustration Styles
Imagery that fills the whole underside of a deck with a single emblem. Bones, skulls and dragons in heavy outline, set on the board as a team's flag in full knowledge that grinding will wear them away.
One emblem filling the underside of the deck / The figure held symmetrically at the center / Heavy black outline over flat color / A heraldry built from bones and skulls
317
アナログホラー / 2015– / Aesthetic / Internet Aesthetics
A net-born video genre that builds fear out of VHS decay, emergency-broadcast formats and the voice of the classroom film. By turning the signs of public-broadcast trust inside out, it makes the format itself the thing that frightens.
Emergency-broadcast formats / Staged VHS decay / The educational-film voice / Censor-style redactions
318
コテージコア / 2018– / Aesthetic / Internet Aesthetics
The internet aesthetic idealizing the cottage, handcraft and fresh bread: soft natural light and handmade texture rebuilding the pastoral as a reaction to digital fatigue.
Soft natural light / Handmade texture / Wildflowers and baking / The premodern idealized
319
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カワイイ / 1970s– / Aesthetic / Pop
Japan's aesthetic of round contours, big eyes, pastel and looseness that summons the urge to protect. From girls' handwriting and fancy goods it softened the surface of an entire society, from public signage to corporate mascots.
Faces of circles and empty space / Big eyes, elided mouths / Pastel softness / Looseness and defenselessness
320
ローブロウ / 1979– / Style / Illustration Styles
Painting from outside the museum, schooled on hot rods, comics, tattoos and B movies. It renders pop memory in exacting oil technique, and Juxtapoz magazine gave it a home under the name Pop Surrealism.
Pop-culture iconography / Precise classical technique / Uneasy humor / Street-born heraldry
321
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カセット・フューチャリズム / 1977–1990s / retro revival / Aesthetic / Visions of the Future
The future as the 1980s pictured it, built from CRTs, physical buttons, thermal paper and squared-off white plastic. Its matte pragmatism is now being reappraised as the counterproposal to sleek science fiction.
CRTs and physical buttons / Squared-off white plastic / Dot-matrix displays / Matte pragmatism
322
ヒプノシス / 1968–1983 / Style / Music Graphics
Thorgerson and Powell's studio brought a photographic surrealism to the record sleeve, staging a burning handshake or a pig adrift in the sky. Trick photography made before CG defined what music looks like when it dreams.
Photographic surrealism / Practical effects and retouching / Riddles refusing explanation / The completeness of the square
323
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アメリカン・トラディショナル / 1900s– / Style / Tattoo Styles
The classic American tattoo style, built from heavy black outlines, a short list of pigments and stock motifs like the anchor, the rose and the swallow. Sailor culture and the copying of flash sheets standardized a graphic language worn on skin.
Bold black outlines / A limited red-green palette / Anchor, rose and swallow stock / Flash-sheet reproduction
324
和彫 / Edo period– / Style / Tattoo Styles
Japanese tattooing that took its cue from Kuniyoshi's Suikoden heroes, carving a narrative across the whole back and outward over the body. Ground patterns of wave and cloud wrap each figure in a frame, and the body becomes a single ukiyo-e.
Full-back narrative composition / Wave-and-cloud framing / Ukiyo-e derived imagery / Flow designed to the body
325
テレテキスト・アート / 1974–2012 / revival / Style / Lettering
Screen art made inside broadcast text, a mosaic of 40 by 24 characters in eight fixed colors. The extreme abstraction of Ceefax weather maps and news pages is being revived now as a classic of constraint.
Eight-color mosaic / The 40x24 frame / Pseudo-curves from blocks / The look of broadcast infrastructure
326
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紙幣のギヨシェ / 18th century– / Technique / Public Design
The banknote style in which lathe-cut guilloche curves and engraved portraits refuse forgery while making credit visible. America's 1896 Educational Series raised the banknote to allegorical masterpiece.
Continuous guilloche curves / Engraved intaglio portraits / Fine background lathework / Hierarchies of denomination
327
蔵書票 / 15th century– / Style / Publishing and Editing
A small print of ownership pasted to a book's endpaper. Since Dürer, engravers have cut heraldry, allegory and the collector's own exact self-image into a few centimeters, making a private graphic where book culture meets printmaking.
The EX LIBRIS formula / Heraldry and allegory / Precise miniature engraving / The owner's self-image
328
トランプの意匠 / 15th century– / Style / Games and Play
The 52-sheet design polished by centuries of use: double-ended court cards, the semiotics of suits, repeating back patterns. Wear and recognition produced a completeness that is also the prehistory of UI design.
Double-ended court cards / Suit signs / Corner indices / Repeating back patterns
329
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タロットの図像 / 15th century– / Style / Games and Play
From the Visconti gold grounds through Marseille woodcuts to the Waite-Smith narrative scenes: allegory systematized into 78 cards. Its openness to rereading keeps drawing designers in.
Major Arcana allegories / Standardized figures and attributes / Frame, number and title / Signs open to rereading
330
家紋 / Heian period– / Style / Symbol Systems
Japan's crest system that geometrizes plants, animals and objects with compass and line alone. Some twenty thousand patterns designed in black-and-white reversal completed the scalable mark centuries before logo design.
Geometry within the circle / Balance in black-white reversal / Extreme abstraction of nature / Compass-and-ruler construction
331
西洋紋章学 / 12th century– / Style / Symbol Systems
Europe's armorial system, born from the need to tell one man from another on the battlefield. Exact description in the language of blazon, the rule of a limited set of tinctures and a grammar of division and combination add up to a design system that has run for 800 years.
Limited tincture colors / The grammar of shield divisions / Describability in blazon / Stylized animal poses
332
篆刻 / Qin dynasty– / Technique / Calligraphic Traditions
East Asia's seal art: seal script carved in stone, composed in a few square centimeters through the reversal of red and white (zhuwen and baiwen). Participating in paintings as signature, it perfected design inside the small square.
Red-white reversal / Seal-script line design / Composition in centimeters / The texture of carved stone
333
星図の様式 / 17th–19th century / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
The Baroque celestial atlas layering constellation mythology over observation. Cellarius's Harmonia Macrocosmica marks the summit of an age when scientific diagram could also be decorative art.
Myth figures over stars / Concentric celestial structure / Gold and blue coloring / Ornamented cartouches
334
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解剖図の様式 / 1543– / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
The style Vesalius's Fabrica established: muscled bodies posing in landscapes. Scientific accuracy cohabiting with theatrical staging governed the grammar of anatomical plates for centuries.
Posing anatomical figures / Landscape backgrounds / Numbers and leader lines / Woodcut and copperplate precision
335
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ボタニカルアート / 16th century– / Style / Natural History Illustration
The tradition of plant portraiture holding scientific precision and decorative beauty together. Redouté's roses in stipple engraving and hand color established elegance-through-accuracy as a style.
A single plant on white / Dissection details added / The softness of stipple engraving / Transparent hand color
336
ポルトラーノ海図 / 13th–17th century / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
A medieval working sea chart, crossed by radiating rhumb lines. Coastlines and place names run precisely along the vellum while flags and monsters fill the empty water, from a time when a map's usefulness and its ornament had not yet parted.
Radiating rhumb lines / Names perpendicular to coasts / The vellum ground / Flags and monsters as ornament
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