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Tone & intent · Emotion

Nostalgic & retro

Deliberate reference to an earlier period.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under tone & intent: what should the work make people feel or do?

styles make it: 76
as a defining choice: 15
as a usual one: 22
now and then: 39
avoid it: 13

Styles defined by it 15

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering1861–1951 · Western EuropeOrnament and lettering of the Celtic Revival in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, modelled on Insular gospel books such as Kells and on carved stone crosses.
Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)1880–1922 · Northern EuropeThe flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament.
Mir iskusstva Book Art1898–1927 · Eastern EuropeThe graphic idiom of the St Petersburg World of Art circle (journal 1898–1904, exhibitions until Paris 1927) and the book artists around it.
Estado Novo Folk Modernism (SPN)1933–1949 · Southern EuropeThe official image of Salazar's Estado Novo, shaped by António Ferro's Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (SPN, 1933; SNI from 1944).
Taiwan Floral Cloth (Huabu)1950–present · East AsiaCheap printed cotton covered edge to edge in large, full-blown peonies with lotuses, phoenixes, dragons, mandarin ducks, small florets and auspicious emblems on saturated vermilion, bright pink or sky-blue grounds.
Baybayin Revival Graphics1963–present · Southeast Asia, North AmericaThe revival of baybayin, the precolonial Tagalog abugida, as a mark of Filipino identity.
NSK Retro-Avant-Garde1980–present · Central Europe, Southern EuropeThe retro-avant-garde of Neue Slowenische Kunst, founded in Ljubljana in 1984 by Laibach, IRWIN and the Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, with Novi kolektivizem as its design department.
Hauntology & Ghost Box Design2004–present · Western EuropeSleeves and print that rebuild a misremembered British past from the public graphics of roughly 1958–1978.
Synthwave / Outrun2006–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, OceaniaThe retro-futurist look of synthwave music: a 1980s revival that grew from mid-2000s French electro and online synth scenes, took its other name from Sega's arcade racer Out Run (1986) and reached the mainstream with Drive (2011).
Hipster Artisanal Revival2007–2018 · North America, Global / networkedThe trade-mark look of the 2007–2018 craft boom, which dressed new coffee roasters, breweries and stationers as nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century firms.
Vaporwave2011–2017 · Global / networked, North AmericaAn 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.
Analog Horror Graphics2015–present · North America, Global / networkedA horror genre, mostly on YouTube, that tells its stories through imitation television and home-video graphics rather than actors: emergency-alert screens, station IDs, public-service, educational and instructional tapes, set between the 1960s and early 2000s.
Newtro (Korean New-Retro)2017–present · East AsiaA South Korean branding trend, named 'Going New-tro' in Seoul National University's Trend Korea 2019 (October 2018), in which heritage firms reissue their own postwar to 1990s labels, trademarks and mascots, polished for young buyers.
Guochao (China-Chic National Trend)2018–present · East AsiaA Chinese branding and fashion trend, usually dated from Li-Ning's 'China Li-Ning' show at New York Fashion Week in February 2018, that redraws heritage motifs as finishes for sneakers, apparel, cosmetics and museum merchandise.
Weirdcore & Dreamcore2019–present · Global / networkedAn internet aesthetic popularised on Reddit, TikTok and YouTube in the early 2020s, with dreamcore as its softer, pastel, cloud-filled sister.

Styles that often use it 22

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 39

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent