It can be vintage, modern, or anything in between! Personally, I really like Vectorheart and Gen X Soft club!! (examples below). I really like how the elements by themselves are very simplistic but as a whole, they create a complex yet airy feel to them, especially with Soft club.
I used to be a fan of the Frutiger Aero aesthetic due to nostalgia, but later left it due to how “inauthentic” the revival became
wow thats my site ahah! do you know whats funny? i actually did not know much about the vectorheart style when i was making my page but Ive seen people mention that it falls under the vectorheart/frutiger metro umbrella and I know that Evan Collins of Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute put it under neo-vectorheart too. That’s to say that often times labels and style categories often come waaay after the actual realization of the style/aesthetic, posthumously maybe. Like how when I was a teen nobody called indie sleaze indie sleaze. I remember calling it like, vague hipster stuff or something, it was still mutating and evolving so giving it one distinct palette would have been weird. It’s why I think all the tiktok -cores and aesthetics have no longevity, they are skipping the entire incubating process of a subculture or visual style. I saw on your other post that you were in middle school in 2021 so maybe its a bit different for you as I imagine you are probably more connected to the relationship of design and the internet than I was/am. Either way Id love to know your thoughts!
I actually think Gen X Soft Club is my favourite visual style because it was everywhere when I was a kid so there’s a kind of nostalgia to it that’s unbeatable for me personally. Plus it’s clean, timeless, but not so narrow that it can’t be experimental.
I was unfortunately a reddit and discord kid back then so I don’t like to talk about that era in my life much.
I WILL say that I wasn’t into the tiktok side of aesthetics as I didn’t use tiktok at all. I was also in a discord server called design tropes that was about cataloging different design aesthetics that I found via the YT channel Linus Boman. Unfortunately that server was never really active but it was a good design resource for a while.
fair enough, say no more!
that sounds pretty interesting, was it kind of like CARI?
Yes, there were channels for each and every design category they had determined, and anyone can upload images to them. though if I’m being honest it being a discord server somewhat defeats the purpose of cataloging examples since it’s not really a public gallery.
Oh, how I wish CARI had a proper forum…
I’m a fan of Frutiger Aero (nostalgia as well – I haven’t encountered the problem of inauthenticity, but maybe that’s because I don’t fuck with places like TikTok).
I also really like Pixelscape (which is a style defined by its usage of elaborate pixel art) and kawaii (which is a style focused on childlike cuteness and innocence). Attached is an image of Whimsical, which I feel captures both of these aesthetics!
I am unsure what it’s called more accurately (if it even has a name?) but i really enjoy this metal/goth/baroque-esque web design style:
I also love me some general y2k vibes, which imstilldreaming designs a lot of and where i have dabbled too, though not as successfully lol. I find the older brother/sister core that was a thing a bit ago especially fun, it just scratches the nostalgia itch in a nice way
I kinda think you can see the influence of both in my site and irl (I generally look like I could have been plucked from the 90s and then showered in general alt-ness, or like Draculaura had a human sister or something lol) but on my site specifically I’d like to experiment more with both styles. The moon theme for the main pages will live on though: that’s not really inspired by anything specific aside from my great love for the moon <3
