Why is vintage design so popular

This vintage trend uses a mix of nostalgic elements and futuristic styles to create eye-catching designs. From neon hues to vintage typography, retro futurism gives graphic designers opportunities to experiment with past and future design elements. Furniture designs are taking a turn way back to the Victorian Age with the use of spool and spindle legs.

These 19 th century furniture inspired cylindrical, ornately carved legs are set to return to industrial design this year. These decorative elements offer furniture designers a way to hone their woodworking skills. Advertisers are making the most of nostalgia that appeals to different generations in order to draw attention to products and services. In the world of illustration , retro designs are also making a comeback while getting more modernized features. This modernized retro trend in illustration can be seen in ads and packaging from major companies, including Apple, and smaller companies.

The combination of retro styles with more modern-day design elements challenges illustrators to creatively blend the past and present. Expanding on the nostalgic trend in , web design and new media is mixing modern styles into retro colors and typography now.

Art Nouveau emerged toward the end of the 19th century and remained popular until the s. This design style is characterized by curved lines and intricate details inspired by flowers and plants. Natural beauty is the key to Art Nouveau, rather than intentional embellishment. What ties them together is their relative simplicity. Letterpress designs have limited color palettes and fonts. You should be able to run your hand across a letterpress design and feel its indent into its paper, or at least look at it and imagine feeling the texture when you touch it.

Think Mad Men. Think modern in a vintage way, but not retrofuturistic. Its straight, clear lines pair with gently curved objects, striking a balance that often looks like softer, rounder shapes encased in direct, unwavering cases. With mid-century modern, there are lots of wood tones and thin supporting structures for oversized objects. Punk rock was born in the s as a response to what many saw as excess in mainstream music.

Punk design is similarly dismissive of the mainstream. Punk design makes the viewer a bit uncomfortable. Harsh lines, clashing colors, juxtaposition and mundane images reused to make new statements are all what translate punk rock into punk imagery. Think steam-powered spaceships and coal-burning computers. Steampunk falls under the umbrella of Retrofuturism. Another kind of Retrofuturism, Atomic Age imagery shows an optimistic, modern world based on a s and s vision of space exploration.

Swiss style, also known as International Typographic Style, is a graphic design style developed in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. By the s, designers in Switzerland standardized design elements that had emerged in Russia, Germany and the Netherlands in the previous decades into the cohesive Swiss style. Swiss style is bold, block letters against solid backgrounds. Vaporwave is a relatively new type of vintage design that emerged on the internet.

Vaporwave design uses vectors and color schemes reminiscent of that era along with imagery one might see in a video game or a surrealist photograph. The primary reason to go with a vintage-inspired design is to evoke nostalgia. When consumers are familiar with a product and fondly look back on their relationship with it, a vintage design is a way to capitalize on that relationship.

A vintage design can also highlight a specific feature of the product—like how a product is made using an older recipe or manufacturing method. Vintage designs are popular with artisan and handcrafted products for this reason. When a brand reaches a certain level of industry clout, changing its branding can undermine its popularity. We live in an uncertain world where technology and culture advance at a faster rate than it ever has before. Looking at vintage imagery feels comforting.

And vintage designs can be a lot of fun! You can use them to stand out and be a bit quirky. Vaporwave works with millennials, but not so much with Baby Boomers. Research designs in that style and pay attention to color palettes, fonts and construction. Look at actual designs from that period to see what colors and combinations were popular.

You can also find color palettes from specific periods online. Get into the theory of color psychology to choose colors and combos that support your branding goal. In this illustration I wanted a joyful vibe, so I chose blue. I then used an earth-colored palette for objects in the background, mostly sticking to the same gradient palette.

This YouTube channel art design uses bright and engaging polka dots to attract subscribers. Album art is always changing and evolving, but since new bands more often than not take inspiration from previous generations, retro album design is always in vogue. So there is an almost endless pool of styles to take inspiration from. This CD cover template uses a triangle pattern and vivid colours that would look at home in the 80s. The warm, familiar feeling that retro design gives us when we see it will always be a powerful one.

Designers will always have a tendency to look to their idols and the past for inspiration. This ensures that retro design will continue to be reflected in their work. You can customise any of the templates featured in this blog post in Design Wizard and create your very own vintage design. Michael Cole is a content writer at Design Wizard. Michael has extensive experience writing for both print and web and can turn his hand to any subject.

From wedding dresses to football matches, Michael has written about it all. May 26, All categories , Design. How is retro design defined? Why is retro design so appealing? Retro design in the world around us The recurrence of retro styles in design has seeped into the world around us. Examples of retro design The following design templates are some examples of retro design that you can personalise with Design Wizard.

Pixelated Design Pixelated designs bring us back to the retro arcade games of the 80s. Flash Sale Designs The jagged text box and lightning icons in this design emphasise the fast paced nature of a flash sale. Neon Colour Schemes Neon colour schemes were all the rage in the 80s and in recent years they have staged a return.

Pink and Red Combinations Sometimes considered to be an incompatible combination, red and pink can form a superb design under the right circumstances. An 80s Throwback Fashion and graphic design can often go hand in hand, and the recent return to popularity of 80s style clothing has coincided with a return for 80s style design. Gatsby Theme The glitz and glamour of Gatsby-style designs will continue to look as good today as they did years ago. Retrowave Retrowave is a form of electronic music that takes inspiration from 80s games and movies.