Screen and digital

Ten looks that came from a screen, and the wording that gets each one.

These styles were born on a monitor rather than a press, so the defects are digital: a chrome bevel, a channel shift, a visible pixel, a polygon that did not get subdivided. Several are also nostalgic for a specific piece of software, which means the prompt has to name the era as well as the look. A clean modern render of a 1995 aesthetic is the wrong decade and it shows immediately.

Corporate looks, borrowed

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Three styles that came out of real institutions and real agencies, and are now used by people who are not them.

NASA Worm Modernist: One continuous rounded logotype, a strict grid, and a red stripe holding it together.

NASA Worm Modernist

One continuous rounded logotype, a strict grid, and a red stripe holding it together.

Psychedelic Seventies Corporate: Rainbow stripe arcs, bulbous bubble type and an earth-tone palette from a brochure.

Psychedelic Seventies Corporate

Rainbow stripe arcs, bulbous bubble type and an earth-tone palette from a brochure.

Designers Republic: Fake corporate marks, warning symbols, numbers and Japanese text, all with no meaning.

Designers Republic

Fake corporate marks, warning symbols, numbers and Japanese text, all with no meaning.

Nostalgia rebuilt

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Three looks that recreate a decade rather than come from it, each nostalgic for a different piece of dead technology.

Y2K Chrome: Liquid chrome, lens flares and translucent blue, from a moment that thought the future was glass.

Liquid chrome, lens flares and translucent blue, from a moment that thought the future was glass.

Vaporwave: A Greek bust, a pink and cyan grid, Japanese text and the melancholy of a dead shopping mall.

A Greek bust, a pink and cyan grid, Japanese text and the melancholy of a dead shopping mall.

Synthwave: A neon grid running to a striped sunset, chrome type, and a purple sky full of haze.

A neon grid running to a striped sunset, chrome type, and a purple sky full of haze.

Made of pixels and polygons

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Four looks where the unit of construction is visible: a pixel, a polygon, a broken scan line, or a perfectly clean vector shape.

Glitch Art: An image breaking: channels shifted, scan lines displaced, blocks repeating where data was lost.

An image breaking: channels shifted, scan lines displaced, blocks repeating where data was lost.

Pixel Art: Every pixel placed on purpose, on a small grid, with a palette of sixteen colours.

Every pixel placed on purpose, on a small grid, with a palette of sixteen colours.

Low Poly: Everything made of flat triangles, each a single colour, with the facets clearly visible.

Everything made of flat triangles, each a single colour, with the facets clearly visible.

Contemporary Flat Illustration: Clean vector shapes, a soft modern palette, and figures simplified past anatomy.

Contemporary Flat Illustration

Clean vector shapes, a soft modern palette, and figures simplified past anatomy.

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Other style groups

Graphic design movementsEighteen movements, and the wording that gets the look of each one.18 design movements Art movements as postersTwenty-one movements, each written as a poster the movement might have printed.21 art movements Print and reproduction looksEleven printing processes, and the wording that gets what each one does to ink.11 print processes Handmade and folkNine ways to make a poster that looks like a person made it, not a studio.9 handmade looks Place and eraFourteen national and period styles, each with the rules that made it local.14 regional styles Propaganda and protestSeven political traditions, and the visual rules each one used to move people.7 political traditions Music scenesTen scenes, and the graphic rules each one used to say who the night was for.10 music scenes

Cinematic techniquesShooting a video rather than printing a poster? The same reference, for the camera.

Because a model will render them with current technology unless told not to. A 1995 raytrace, a 2001 chrome bevel and a 2014 low poly scene are different objects, and naming the year is what stops the result looking modern.