Sixteen Kinks and Their Devils, Outer and Inner Faces

The sixteen split first into eight S types and eight M types, and each carries a name that sums up its kink in a word or two, such as the Keyholder, the Edging Master, the Suspension Bunny or the Spanking Brat.

The posters show devils that painters and engravers have been drawing for centuries: devils who tempt, devils who offer a contract, devils who cackle, devils in chains, devils mid-pounce. From the countless devils in the old masters, we picked the one whose expression and pose echo the core of each type, one devil per type. Tempting, bargaining, tormenting and sometimes being bound themselves, devils have always been the leads in stories of desire, power and surrender.

No kink ranks above another. Each is simply one way for consenting adults to play.

The day poster shows the outer face. In bright daytime colors, it stands for your public character and play style, in other words the impression of your kinks that people around you pick up.

The night poster shows the inner face. The same devil is set in a night palette and stands for the desires you feel when you fantasize alone. It is not a shameful secret, but a calm and honest other side.

The outer face and the inner face are measured separately. Your outer face might be the Keyholder while your inner face is the Human Pet; it is common for the two to be different types. Top in public, bottom in private: both halves of that gap are part of you.

The inner-face questions also measure how much your feelings sway inside, which we read as how well your brakes hold once desire catches fire. The result is drawn as a soft light around the devil on your night poster.

• K (Keel (in control)): a calm ring. Even in the heat of it, part of you stays cool and your brakes tend to hold.
• V (Volatile (runaway)): a flickering light. Once your switch flips, desire tends to max out and is hard to stop.

Neither is strong or weak; they are just different habits of the brakes. The more easily you run away with it, the more a safeword and a cap on strokes or time, agreed in advance, let you enjoy it all the way.

The sixteen split into four groups based on what turns them on and the temperature or pace they like. Each group's posters share one family of colors, so its four posters read as a set: black and steel for Mind Games, rose and blush for Fantasy Romance, hemp and amber for Craft & Ritual, and crimson and black for Primal. Within a group, hue and lightness shift a little from type to type so each one stays distinct.

• Mind Games (Atmosphere (mind) × Lash (cold); black and steel): Contracts, keys, trance and insults: owning a mind, or being owned
• Fantasy Romance (Atmosphere (mind) × Honey (sweet); rose and blush): Collars, edging and the blush of being watched, served sweet
• Craft & Ritual (Direct (body) × Grooming (ritual); hemp and amber): Hemp rope, suspension, wax and devotion at the feet, trained in slowly
• Primal (Direct (body) × Wild (impulse); crimson and black): Crops, open palms, ambush play and tickling that catch fire on the spot

Every poster starts from a devil in a public-domain painting or engraving by an old master. We crop out a single figure and redraw it as a portrait in polygon art: each form is split into small triangular facets and painted facet by facet. Key areas such as the face and hands use fine facets, while bodies and backgrounds are cut into large, bold ones, and neighboring facets shift slightly in hue to keep the drama and shading of the original.

Because your outer and inner faces can be different types, all 32 posters share the same square, scale and light direction, so any pairing looks natural side by side.