Original art
Steampunk is a cool vintage design that was popular in the 1970s and 80s thanks to roots in science fiction and futuristic thinking. The design style has Victorian-era influences with coils and detailing with curved lines, it uses subdued color palettes, and has a “romantic” look with high-fashion characters shazam-codes.com.
While there are plenty of vintage graphic design styles to work with, a few seem to rise above the rest. These more common vintage styles seem to maintain a mainstream presence in many design projects.
When we recreate vintage design styles, we might try to replicate the look of these ageing processes to make the design appear more authentic. You can easily infuse your designs with instant retro style design by using a vintage-inspired texture or background.
The feeling of nostalgia is a powerful force when it comes to influencing how your design is perceived. According to Nostalgia and Its Value to Design Strategy: Some Fundamental Considerations, a paper presented at the Proceedings of the Tsinghua-DMI International Design Management Symposium, “Cognitive theorists believe that emotions have a strong influence on human behavior, that is, people will be attracted by the objects that evoke positive emotions and forced away from those things that evoke negative emotions. Nostalgia, like other positive emotions, when it is evoked by certain stimulus (e.g., products, brands), will incite people to approach (e.g., to purchase or to interact with) it.”
Retro graphic
Often incorporating the same pastels and tropical motifs, 80s Deco was also a popular design trend, often consisting of bright neon colors, drop shadows, clean sans-serif fonts and pronounced angles and curves. And both of these trends are popping up left, right and centre in 2020.
“It’s 2020 and Cyberpunk is still going strong,” confirms Kate. “Personally I’m looking forward to playing the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077. The retro future aesthetic is everything I wished for and more.”
An era that brought us hair metal, synth-pop, hip-hop beats, and lovelorn ballads, there’s no question that the 80s were an incredibly diverse time for music. Gracing us with the likes of The Cure, Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and ACDC, the 80s decade was a big turning point for the development of digital music.
Often incorporating the same pastels and tropical motifs, 80s Deco was also a popular design trend, often consisting of bright neon colors, drop shadows, clean sans-serif fonts and pronounced angles and curves. And both of these trends are popping up left, right and centre in 2020.
“It’s 2020 and Cyberpunk is still going strong,” confirms Kate. “Personally I’m looking forward to playing the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077. The retro future aesthetic is everything I wished for and more.”
Theatrical artwork
Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes is perhaps one of the strongest representations of theatrical climax within Baroque painting. Utilizing Caravaggian tenebrism and chiaroscuro on the figures, Gentileschi implies a powerful sense of dramatic stage lighting, as well as urgent, swift movement. The scene itself has an almost Shakespearian vibe to its violence, bearing strong tonal resemblance to the assassination of Caesar. Indeed, the Apocryphal story of Judith beheading the Assyrian Holofernes was memorable for both its religious relevance and its purely compelling nature as a narrative, and Gentileschi communicates the drama of the entire ordeal in spades through the implied choreography of her actors, as well as her choice of environmental tone and design. One of the reasons this piece stands out is because it seems very literally “staged”, with the dark black background being strongly reminiscent of a black curtain in a theater. Tenebrism in painting is not so different from the backdrop of a stage, and, especially in this case, serves to create an almost identical effect.
Theatre has a long-standing relationship with societal commentary, and that hasn’t changed. Now, the focus frequently shifts towards contemporary social issues, and cultural representation has become a crucial part of modern productions. Theatrical pieces openly tackle subjects of restoration and change within societies, leveraging the intimate connection between actors and spectators to prompt reflection and dialogue.
This is not to say that the contribution of the author to the theatrical experience is unimportant. The script of a play is the basic element of theatrical performance. In the case of many masterpieces it is the most important element. But even these dramatic masterpieces demand the creative cooperation of artists other than the author. The dramatic script, like an operatic score or the scenario of a ballet, is no more than the raw material from which the performance is created. The actors, rather than merely reflecting a creation that has already been fully expressed in the script, give body, voice, and imagination to what was only a shadowy indication in the text. The text of a play is as vague and incomplete in relation to a fully realized performance as is a musical score to a concert. The Hamlets of two great actors probably differ more than two virtuoso renditions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations possibly can. In general, the truly memorable theatrical experience is one in which the various elements of performance are brought into a purposeful harmony. It is a performance in which the text has revealed its meanings and intentions through skillful acting in an environment designed with the appropriate measure of beauty or visual impact.
The Renaissance witnessed a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman theater, influencing the works of playwrights like William Shakespeare. The 17th and 18th centuries saw the rise of neoclassical ideals and the birth of the opera.