Vintage (design)

Vintage is a concept in design relating to the use of styles, themes, ideas, items, or other elements from past times. The exact definition of vintage varies widely but usually refers to elements that date back twenty years or longer. Some popular modern vintage design harkens back to the 1850s or even earlier. Vintage designers revisit genres of the past to borrow or reinterpret their styles. Many vintage designs, especially those based on relatively modern history, often awaken a feeling of nostalgia in their creators, owners, or users.

Background

The discipline of design relates to the interplay between a person and their environment, specifically those parts of the environment that are created or controlled by people. Basically, design deals with how human-made places and objects are styled and arranged to maximize a particular experience, often pleasure or comfort.

As a mixture of science and art, design touches upon many facets of life and areas of study. Design practitioners seek to make their creations visually pleasing as well as functional. They try to bring in suitable elements to match a given context (such as a house being redecorated) as well as the standards, beliefs, and interests of the broader society and culture.

In some form or another, designers have played a role in creating basically every human-made invention, large or small, ranging from fashion accessories to the layouts of entire cities. Whether they work on the micro or macro scale, designers generally seek to make the most of the materials at hand, find the best solutions for their clients, and apply their unique creative abilities to all they do.

Although the design industry formed in relatively modern times, the idea of design can be traced back far into human history. People have applied design techniques since the first tools and weapons were made, and ancient art, such as cave drawings, demonstrates that even early humans had a flare for decorating their living spaces and expressing their feelings visually.

Some design innovations derive directly from the creator’s imagination; however, most borrow elements from other designs, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Designers have borrowed ideas from other designers and foreign cultures. In many cases, designers even look toward the past for inspiration for modern designs. This practice is often called vintage design, with “vintage” referring to ideas or elements from prior eras.

Overview

Designers in ancient times often borrowed elements from even older peoples; for example, much of Ancient Rome’s greatest statuary was based on earlier Greek designs. In modern times, vintage-minded designers have a huge range of time periods from which to borrow ideas and elements. While some may look all the way back into ancient times, most vintage designers focus primarily on the styles of the last one or two centuries or just the previous few generations. Some sources have attempted to define vintage styles as those datable back from about twenty to one hundred years.

Designers and other artists view the history of design as an endless progression of genres and styles. In some cases, very popular or influential genres have come to characterize the artistic sensibilities of their eras.

One of the earliest periods popular with modern vintage designers is the Victorian Period, which dates to the reign of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, or approximately 1850 to 1900. The Victorian Era saw many great shifts in society and economics, which are reflected in much of its unique art and style. Designs of this era are often noted for their elaborate ornamentation and imaginative patterning, paired with careful symmetry. Modern fascination with Victorian designs has led to attempts to merge them into retro-futuristic fictional genres such as Steampunk.

Following the industrialization of the Victorian Era, many artists turned in a new direction that emphasized flowing, natural designs but without compromising intricate patterning. The arts and crafts movement in design, lasting from around the 1870s to 1910s, saw designers embrace shapes, colors, and patterns inspired by nature. Many use motifs such as flowers and vines, and some borrow from pre-industrialized time periods, such as medieval-style fonts.

Around the same period, another movement in art and design emerged known as Art Nouveau. It blended the sensibilities of the other genres by using intricate ornamentation to show graceful, flowing scenes, often including stylized human figures, such as women with sinuous hair surrounded by flowers and gems.

The early 1900s saw several artistic and design movements that attempted to subvert the idealized beauty and elaborate patterning of prior works. Movements such as Dadaism and the avant-garde style used surreal, often ugly, images in unexpected ways and in unnatural color schemes. This form of design is often meant to protest the ills of the modern world and express strong, sometimes jarring emotions to the viewer.

Art Deco, a major style of the 1920s and 1930s, borrowed some of the unusual imagery but used it to celebrate the high times and widespread prosperity of the interwar years. Art Deco works often employ blocky forms, sharp angles, and stylized figures rendered in simple yet eye-catching colors. Some of the most well-known Art Deco pieces are advertisements for luxury goods and travel destinations.

The Mid-Century style, occurring mainly in America, took place in the largely prosperous years following World War II. Mid-Century designs are often abstract but generally use their unusual renderings to convey feelings of peace, happiness, comfort, whimsy, and abundance. This era of design began to fall off in the 1960s, when it was gradually replaced with the so-called Psychedelic era of wavy, surreally colored designs inspired by the visions of people using hallucinogenic drugs.

Fans of design may view a particular item as broadly representative of the decade or generation during which it was made. This is most often the case with relatively modern items or designs, often those from within the memory of the owner or user. For example, people may associate wood-paneled walls and bell-bottom pants with the 1970s. These associations often tie into people’s personal memories and stir feelings of nostalgia. Into the mid-2020s, designs from the turn of the twenty-first century were just entering vintage labeling.

Bibliography

Bautista, Gian. “Retro Design Styles.” UCreative, 3 Apr. 2024, www.ucreative.com/articles/retro-design-styles. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Chalmers, Emily and Ali Hanan. Modern Vintage Style. Ryland Peters & Small, 2017.

Dirix, Emmanuelle. Dressing the Decades: Twentieth-Century Vintage Style. Quid Publishing, 2016.

“4 Vintage Styles and How to Tell the Difference Between Them.” Your Home and Garden, 19 Apr. 2017, www.yourhomeandgarden.co.nz/inspiration/interior‗style/4-vintage-styles. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Fussell, Grace. “A Guide to Vintage Design Styles.” Envato Tuts+, 17 June 2020, design.tutsplus.com/articles/the-potted-guide-to-vintage-design-styles--cms-26986. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Galindo, Michelle and Lisa Hayek. Retro & Vintage Design. Braun Publishing, 2014.

Gallagher, Jacob. “Clothes From the 2000s Are Vintage Now. For Some Shoppers, That’s Scary.” The Wall Street Journal, 5 Dec. 2023, www.wsj.com/style/fashion/vintage-fashion-2000s-aughts-band-tees-98fca256. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Gross, Rebecca. “Going Retro: How to Bring New Creative Life to Your Designs with Retro Design.” Canva, www.canva.com/learn/retro. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

“What Is Design?” International Council of Design, www.theicod.org/en/professional-design/what-is-design/what-is-design. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.