masonma.org · Design Vault

30 Design Styles,
Each Telling Its Own Story.

A curated library of design movements, aesthetics, and systems — with history, philosophy, and live HTML examples.

🎨 Classic Design Movements

Swiss Design

Switzerland, 1940s–60s

1940s

Josef Müller-Brockmann, Armin Hofmann

Order, clarity, the grid.

Bauhaus

Germany, 1919–33

1919

Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky

Form follows function.

Memphis Design

Milan, Italy, 1981

1981

Ettore Sottsass + Memphis Group

Design should make you feel something.

Swiss Punk

Switzerland, 1980s

1980s

April Grebel, Karl Geruner, Rico Gülly

Destroy the grid to save it.

New Wave Typography

France, late 1970s–80s

Late 1970s

April Grebel, Wolfgang Weingart

Type is not neutral. Type is a character.

Flat Design 2.0

Digital interfaces, 2012 onward

2013

Apple (iOS 7), Google (Material), Microsoft

Remove. Then remove again.

Skeuomorphism

Early digital interfaces, 1984 onward

1984

Apple (classic OS), Microsoft

Make digital feel familiar.

Neumorphism

Digital interfaces, 2019

2019

Alex Shipunas (popularized)

Light from above. Everything extruded.

Brutalism

Web design, 2014 onward

2014

Cody Paulson, designers at Bloomberg, Balenciaga

No hiding. Structure is aesthetic.

Glassmorphism

macOS Big Sur, 2020

2020

Apple (macOS Big Sur visual language)

Layers of reality.

🖥️ Modern Digital Aesthetics

Dark Mode + Accent

Linear, Raycast, modern dev tools, 2019 onward

2019

Linear, Vercel, Raycast

One color in the dark.

Editorial / Magazine

Print publishing, adapted for web

Adaptation: 2010s

Bloomberg, The New York Times Magazine, The Verge

The story leads.

Minimal Luxury

Luxury fashion, applied to digital

2015 onward

Céline (under Phoebe Philo), Bottega Veneta, Apple

Remove until you cannot remove more.

Generative Design

Computer art, 1960s; digital, 2010s

1960s (art); 2010s (web)

Vera Molnár, Casey Reas, Tyler Hobbs

Rules create infinity.

Terminal / Hacker

Unix terminals, command-line tools

1970s (origins); 2010s (aesthetic revival)

Unix culture, GNU/Linux, hacker community

The terminal is the interface.

Warm Analog

Independent publishing, Are.na culture, 2015 onward

2015

Are.na, Not Boring, various indie publishers

Not digital enough.

Neo-Brutalism

Web design, 2020 onward

2020

Figma community, Koto, various indie designers

Structure as play.

Maximalism

Art Nouveau, Baroque; adapted 2020s

2020s

Ben Mingo, various experimental designers

More is more.

Corporate Memphis

Illustration, applied by tech companies, 2016 onward

2016

Slack, Facebook, Instagram design teams

Everyone looks like everyone.

Typographic Poster

Swiss posters, 1950s–70s; revival 2010s

1950s (origins); 2018 (revival)

Josef Müller-Brockmann, Armin Hofmann; ISO-POP movement

Letters as images.

📱 Interface Design Systems

Dark + Product Screenshot

Stripe, Vercel, Linear marketing sites, 2019 onward

Print layouts, adapted for web; Framer, Apple

2019

Framer, Apple product pages

Two sides of the same story.

Grid as Hero

Swiss Design, applied to web

1950s (print); 2020s (web revival)

Josef Müller-Brockmann; Swiss International Style

The system is the content.

Parallax / Motion-Driven

Flash animation; CSS/JS revival

2018 onward

Josh Comeau, Stripe, various creative developers

Depth is a design element.

Gradient Rich

iOS, Spotify, modern web

2016 onward

Apple (iOS 7+), Spotify, various

Color as the whole argument.

Playful / Rounded

iOS apps, communication tools

2018 onward

Notion, Linear (pre-2022), various

Roundness is a personality.

Black + Single Accent

Arc browser, Raycast, Linear

2021 onward

The Browser Company (Arc), Raycast

One color. Pure focus.

Retro / Y2K

2000s web aesthetics, revived 2021 onward

2021 (revival)

Various indie designers, Jenny Hoyston, Clubhouse

The future used to look like this.

AI / Synthetic

AI products, 2023 onward

2023

Vercel v0, bolt.new, various AI-first products

Intelligence has a visual language.

30 Design Styles,Each Telling Its Own Story.

30 Design Styles,
Each Telling Its Own Story.