Style combination · Pairs well

Early Web Vernacular × Vaporwave

Vaporwave already mines this archive; combine tiled backgrounds and default fonts with its pastel 3D for nostalgic net art.

From the research on Early Web Vernacular

Mix them and make something Early Web Vernacular Vaporwave

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Early Web Vernacular, their arrangement from Vaporwave, the finish from Vaporwave. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Early Web Vernacular Vaporwave

Type from Early Web Vernacular: Eclectic mixing
Transitional serif
Colour from Early Web Vernacular: Full polychrome
Complementary clash
Form from Early Web Vernacular: Rectilinear
Abundant decoration
Composition from Vaporwave: Collage & layering
Central symmetry
Surface from Vaporwave: Glitch
Chrome & 3D render

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Early Web Vernacular

Again

Newsreader, standing in for Times New Roman (browser default)

Text · Vaporwave

An internet-born microgenre and visual aesthetic that remixes the debris of late-20th-century consumer culture (Windows 95 dialogs, classical busts, palm trees, mall interiors, Japanese text, early 3D renders) in pastel pinks and cyans. Emerging around 2011 from records by James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Vektroid, it is at once nostalgic homage and deadpan critique of corporate optimism.

Shippori Mincho; Vaporwave used Full-width Latin text and Japanese katakana in MS Gothic / MS Mincho

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Early Web Vernacular, with a counter-accent from Vaporwave. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Early Web Vernacular Vaporwave

#000080 ground · 36%
#00ff00 ink · 14%
#0000ff accent · 18%
#01cdfe accent · 14%
#ff00ff accent · 10%
#05ffa1 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #000080;
  --ink: #00ff00;
  --accent-1: #0000ff;
  --accent-2: #01cdfe;
  --accent-3: #ff00ff;
  --accent-4: #05ffa1;
  --font-display: "Newsreader", serif;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

The two styles

A densely decorated blue ocean-themed webpage features the title “OCEAN DREAMS” above a pearl-and-shell-framed picture of dolphins. Repeated dolphins, glittering stars, hearts, planets, kittens, fairies, fish and small novelty icons fill the surrounding space.

1994–2004 · Global / networked Early Web Vernacular The amateur web of the mid-1990s to early 2000s, when millions of people hand-coded personal homepages on free hosts such as GeoCities with table layouts, browser-default fonts, tiled backgrounds, animated GIFs, MIDI soundtracks, hit counters and ‘under construction’ signs. Its look came from HTML's limits, slow modems and enthusiastic bricolage rather than professional design; Olia Lialina later named it ‘a vernacular web’.

A large classical sculpted head rises from a turquoise swimming pool beneath a striped yellow-pink sun, surrounded by palm trees, waterfalls, city buildings and tropical foliage. Floating computer windows, a dolphin, cherry blossoms, a compact disc and a wireframe globe fill the pink-and-purple sky beneath the title “DREAM POOL.”

2011–2017 · Global / networked, North America Vaporwave An internet-born microgenre and visual aesthetic that remixes the debris of late-20th-century consumer culture (Windows 95 dialogs, classical busts, palm trees, mall interiors, Japanese text, early 3D renders) in pastel pinks and cyans. Emerging around 2011 from records by James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Vektroid, it is at once nostalgic homage and deadpan critique of corporate optimism.

More combinations

With Early Web Vernacular

All 10 combinations with Early Web Vernacular

With Vaporwave

All 19 combinations with Vaporwave

Every style combination