Stylogenyin the style of Vaporwave

Digital native · 2011–2017 · Global / networked, North America

Vaporwave

Also known as Vaporwave aesthetic, ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ

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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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.”
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Collage appropriated late-20th-century commercial imagery (classical busts, Windows 95 dialogs, palm trees, mall interiors, bottled water) into dreamlike scenes.
  • Bathe everything in pastel pink, lilac and cyan, with sunset gradients and occasional neon.
  • Set text in full-width, widely spaced Latin letters and mix in Japanese katakana for a hazy, globalised-corporate atmosphere.
  • Stage objects on infinite perspective grids, checkerboard floors and low-poly 3D renders.
  • Degrade the image with VHS scanlines, glitches and compression artefacts to evoke decaying memory.
  • Keep the tone deadpan and ambivalent: half homage, half critique of consumer nostalgia.

Online music and art communities (Tumblr, Bandcamp, Last.fm, Reddit)

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Earth & mineral, Paper & letterpress bite, Carved line, Column grid, Rational & objective, Authoritative & institutional

Palette

  • #ff71ce
  • #01cdfe
  • #05ffa1
  • #b967ff
  • #fffb96
  • #1a1040

Typefaces

  • Full-width Latin text

    ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ

  • Japanese katakana in MS Gothic / MS Mincho

  • MS Sans Serif

    Windows 95 interface

  • Times New Roman and Arial system defaults

Known for

  • Macintosh Plus (Vektroid), Floral Shoppe

    2011

  • James Ferraro, Far Side Virtual

    2011

  • Daniel Lopatin as Chuck Person, Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1

    2010

  • Blank Banshee, Blank Banshee 0

    2012

  • Adam Harper, 'Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza', Dummy

    2012

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Vaporwave’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleVaporwave2011–2017 · Global / networked, North America

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. Adam Harper, 'Comment: Vaporwave and the pop-art of the virtual plaza', Dummy Mag (2012)
  2. Grafton Tanner, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts (Zero Books, 2016)

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.