Memphis

Also called Memphis Group, Memphis Milano

Loud clashing colour, squiggles, terrazzo speckle and geometric shapes used with no hierarchy, from a design group that set out to offend good taste on purpose.

The Carlton bookcase by Ettore Sottsass for Memphis, 1981: coloured planks at odd angles on a terrazzo-patterned base. — Carlton bookcase, Ettore Sottsass for Memphis, 1981, in the Milwaukee Art Museum, Sailko (photograph). CC BY 3.0. Scaled to 960 px wide; the index picture is a crop. Retrieved 2026-09-09.

Near it

Neo-brutalism

Corporate Memphis

Bauhaus

Vaporwave

Maximalism Y2K

What it is made of

palette	clashing, saturated, no dominant hue
pattern	squiggle, terrazzo, grid, zigzag, used together
form	geometric primitives at odd angles

Where it came from

Milan, 1981, founded by Ettore Sottsass. Named after the Bob Dylan song playing on the night the group formed.