# Psychedelic poster generator

Your photo melted into many bands of vibrating flat colour, with echo rings in the ground and your words swollen to fill a shape. The photo stays on your device.

Open the generator: https://morph.ogeny.app/psychedelic/

## Design choices

- **Whiplash line** (`form.whiplash`): Sinuous, energetic S-curves. “Flow”: Whiplash. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/whiplash-line/
- **Radial & concentric** (`layout.radial`): Elements radiate from, or orbit around, a centre. “Flow”: Swirl. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/radial-and-concentric/
- **Optical pattern** (`form.op-pattern`): Repeated lines and modules that vibrate or warp perception. “Flow”: Ripple. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/optical-pattern/
- **Distortion & exaggeration** (`form.distorted-figure`): Elongated, warped or grotesque figures. Set by “Distortion & exaggeration”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/distortion-and-exaggeration/
- **Full polychrome** (`color.polychrome`): Many saturated hues at once. “Colour”: Full polychrome. Measured on the opening picture with “Full polychrome”: hues besides black, white and grey 4. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/
- **Complementary clash** (`color.complementary-clash`): Vibrating opposites placed edge to edge. “Colour”: Complementary clash. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/complementary-clash/
- **Fluorescent & neon** (`color.neon`): Day-glo inks and RGB brights. “Colour”: Fluorescent. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/fluorescent-and-neon/
- **Gradients** (`color.gradient`): Smooth blends, fades or spectral ramps. Set by “Split fountain”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/gradients/
- **Horror vacui** (`space.dense`): Every area is filled; abundant, crowded, layered. Set by “Horror vacui”. Measured on the opening picture, off to on: shapes 91 → 114. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/
- **Experimental & distorted** (`type.experimental`): Stretched, fragmented, layered or deliberately hard-to-read letters. Set by “Experimental & distorted”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/experimental-and-distorted/
- **Treated photography** (`image.treated-photo`): Duotone, high-contrast or posterised photographs. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/
- **Organic flow** (`layout.organic-flow`): Text and image follow curving, natural paths instead of a grid. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/organic-flow/
- **Biomorphic curves** (`form.organic`): Soft, cell-like, plant-like forms. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/biomorphic-curves/
- **Flat fields** (`color.flat-fields`): Unmodulated areas of colour. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/
- **Flat** (`surface.flat`): No simulated depth or texture. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/

## How it works

- The photo’s tones become many nested bands, cut along their outlines and filled with flat inks of near-equal value, so the edges between them vibrate.
- Every outline, the echo rings in the ground and the words are bent through one smooth flow (a whiplash stream, a swirl, a melt or a ripple), so the picture reads as one liquid surface.
- Words are set wide and heavy and swollen to fill a shape, then melt with the picture.

It never does:

- No copy of any poster, artist’s lettering or venue: the words are the visitor’s own, and no default names an event.
- No embedded photo: every colour is a cut shape, and the photo never leaves the visitor’s device.
- Motion only breathes the flow around its still, a few units either way, so crowded bands never flicker.

## Controls

- `flow` Flow (whiplash | swirl | melt | ripple; default whiplash): The one field every outline is bent through: a stream along an S-curve, two eddies, a downward melt, or crossing waves.
- `strength` Distortion & exaggeration (0–1, default 0.45): How far the flow bends the photo, from a ripple to a liquid texture.
- `bands` Tone bands (5–9, default 7): How many tones the photo is cut into.
- `colour` Colour (polychrome | clash | neon; default polychrome): Every ink of the palette in turn, two equal-value opposites alternating, or the palette pushed to day-glo. Full polychrome: Measured on the opening picture with “Full polychrome”: hues besides black, white and grey 4.
- `split` Split fountain (default false): Each ink blends into another of like value across the sheet, as when two inks share the press.
- `aura` Horror vacui (default true): Fills the ground round a clear subject with rings echoing its outline. A busy photo keeps its own tones. Measured on the opening picture, off to on: shapes 91 → 114.
- `text` Words (default ""): Your words, swollen to fill a shape at the top or the bottom. Left empty, no words.
- `lettering` Experimental & distorted (swell | arch | wave; default swell): The shape the words swell to fill: a lens, an arch or a wave.

## About Psychedelic Poster

Psychedelic posters came out of the counterculture of the mid-1960s, from the ballrooms of San Francisco and the underground press of London. Letters melted and swelled until they filled whole shapes, the curves of Art Nouveau and the Vienna Secession returned at hallucinatory strength, and fluorescent or complementary colours were set side by side so that the edges vibrated. Reading one was meant to be slow: the poster held you while you worked it out.

This generator treats your photo the same way. Its tones become many nested bands, cut along their outlines and filled with flat inks of close value, so the edges between them shimmer. Every outline, the echo rings in the ground and your words are bent through one smooth flow (a whiplash stream, a swirl, a melt or a ripple), so the whole picture reads as one liquid surface.

With animation on, the flow keeps moving and the loop ends where it began. It stays slow and below the flash limits. Your photo is read only in your browser and is never uploaded.

Psychedelic Poster in Stylogeny (1965–1973): https://stylogeny.com/styles/psychedelic/

## Recipe

```json
{
  "tool": "psychedelic",
  "v": 1,
  "seed": 1,
  "format": "portrait",
  "params": {
    "flow": "whiplash",
    "strength": 0.45,
    "bands": 7,
    "colour": "polychrome",
    "split": false,
    "aura": true,
    "text": "",
    "lettering": "swell"
  },
  "palette": "psychedelic"
}
```