popstijl

Popstijl, or pop style, is a term used in Dutch-speaking contexts to describe a design and visual culture that borrows from popular culture, mass media, and consumer imagery. The label is often linked to, but not limited to, the international Pop Art movement of the mid-20th century. In the Netherlands and Flanders, popstijl has been applied to both fine art practices and applied arts, including graphic design, advertising, and architecture, where imagery from comics, film, magazines, and consumer products is rendered in bright colors, flat shapes, and bold typography.

Origins of the concept are diffuse; critics and designers in the Netherlands and Belgium used the term to denote a shift away from traditional high art toward everyday imagery and mass production techniques. The approach emphasizes appropriation, repetition, irony, and a critical stance toward consumer culture, while at times embracing the aesthetics of commercial printing and packaging.

Applications span poster design, magazine layout, album covers, interior and product design, and public art. In practice, popstijl overlaps with other late-20th-century movements such as Pop Art and graphic design traditions, but it remains distinguished by its regional production contexts and references to Dutch and Belgian popular culture.

Today, the term is mainly encountered in design histories and critical writing about mid-to-late 20th-century visual culture in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is used variably and sometimes loosely, with no single fixed canon. Contemporary designers occasionally draw on popstijl motifs as part of a revival of retro or media-informed aesthetics.