Stylogeny combining PS1 × Vaporwave

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Style combination · Contrasts

PS1 × Vaporwave

Vaporwave also reuses early 3D, but as pastel, ironic collage of busts and grids; the PSX revival keeps the 3D in dark earth tones and fog for horror. Drop the pastels when the brief wants unease.

From the research on PS1 / Lo-Fi 3D Revival (PSX Aesthetic)

Mix them and make something PS1 Vaporwave

MEMORYMEMORYMEMORYPS1 × Vaporwave2015 · 2011
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Vaporwave, their arrangement from PS1, the finish from PS1. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

PS1 / Lo-Fi 3D Revival (PSX Aesthetic) Vaporwave

Type from Vaporwave
Colour from PS1

Vaporwave avoids earth & mineral: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Form from Vaporwave
Composition from PS1
Surface from PS1

02

The type

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

Display · Vaporwave

Memory

Syncopate, standing in for Full-width Latin text (ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ)

Text · PS1

Indie games and their artwork that rebuild the look of late-1990s console and PC 3D on modern engines: few polygons, tiny low-resolution textures that warp as the original PlayStation's affine-only mapping did, dithering, grain and distance fog over murky, dark earth tones. Puppet Combo's horror games 'modeled after early PlayStation games and VHS' and Dusk's Quake-like shooter set it going; the Haunted PS1 community made it a scene, with game jams and digital Demo Discs whose menus and manual booklets imitate the era's demo discs.

VT323; PS1 used Bitmap and pixel fonts in capitals for menus and HUDs, in the manner of the PlayStation demo-disc and Namco Museum front ends the Haunted PS1 Demo Discs model their menus on (a working description: the scene has no settled typeface canon) and Title cards and on-screen lettering borrowed from VHS tapes and late-1990s survival-horror title screens, as in Puppet Combo's games modelled on early PlayStation games and VHS

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from PS1, with a counter-accent from Vaporwave. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

PS1 / Lo-Fi 3D Revival (PSX Aesthetic) Vaporwave

  • #0d0d0c ground · 36%
  • #c9c2a8 ink · 14%
  • #6b1d16 accent · 18%
  • #01cdfe accent · 14%
  • #5c5446 accent · 10%
  • #05ffa1 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0d0d0c;
  --ink: #c9c2a8;
  --accent-1: #6b1d16;
  --accent-2: #01cdfe;
  --accent-3: #5c5446;
  --accent-4: #05ffa1;
  --font-display: "Syncopate", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

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The two styles

A dark, blocky illustration shows a blood-streaked wooden walkway winding along steep cliffs toward a stone building with a lit doorway. A pale moon hangs over misty rock spires and a distant arched bridge beneath the jagged title “HOLLOW RIDGE.” 2015–present · North America, Western Europe, Global / networked PS1 / Lo-Fi 3D Revival (PSX Aesthetic) Indie games and their artwork that rebuild the look of late-1990s console and PC 3D on modern engines: few polygons, tiny low-resolution textures that warp as the original PlayStation's affine-only mapping did, dithering, grain and distance fog over murky, dark earth tones. Puppet Combo's horror games 'modeled after early PlayStation games and VHS' and Dusk's Quake-like shooter set it going; the Haunted PS1 community made it a scene, with game jams and digital Demo Discs whose menus and manual booklets imitate the era's demo discs. 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.

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