Grainy Photos, loud Patterns and Synthetic Strings

Highlights

In the Weekends recent release we see the aesthetic mainly in the song itself with the heavy use of synths and Maniac esque pop drums with likes of Michael Sembollo. But also on the album cover itself in the Weekends hairstyle, earing, glasses and the font style.

Jackboys album cover has the grain and washed out colors of a typical 80s photograph.

The Stranger Things screams 80s and it should as it takes place in the 1983s of Indiana.

A prominent trend that’s been everywhere from movies to fashion to the music industry the last couple of years is the 80s influence. Loud colors and patterns on loosely fitted clothes seems to be what most set wardrobes consist of in Netflix HQ. Synths seem to have a space both on the billboard and the indie scene. Let’s explore how the era of acid wash jeans is influencing the industry today.

Series

Pose, a series about new yorks grand ballroom culture scene takes place in the late 80s and early 90s. This show oozoes of the aesthetic in its character outfits and set environment.

Sex Education is one of those series that takes the pecualiar approach of combining the looks of an older universe with modern society functions. While the characters and their sourroundings look 80s they also use smartphones. I personally like this trend.

A screengrab from Pose, a show taking place in the 80s of New York. Hair, outfit and the environment of a diner is oozing 80s while the makeup has a more contempory look.

A prime example of environment and character outfits that express nothing but 80s. The car in the background is a nice touch.

In the digital industries of photos, movies, sound and music we see the attempt of incorporating the feeling of polished yet low tech quality. In photography and video, filters are added to look like they were shot on a Kodak with poor ISO settings. Also, glitches and blemishes created during the developing process are gems for the visual look. The goal with this aesthetic is to blend the visual characteristics of the 80s with modern methods. In film for example, this would be paying attention to panning, image stabilization, vfx, etc while maintaining a grainy look with slightly misrepresented colors.

Fashion

Kim Kardashian featuring an outfit with the recently repopularized biker pants along with a classic loosely fitted wind breaker. The bike pants are the piece that screams 80s the most here and resembles something Lady Diana would wear in a papparazzi shot from the 80s.

Grabbed from urbanoutfitters frontpage. Fleece pullovers with loud patterns is making a comeback, especially these aztek like patterns.

Retro (80s) Casio digital clocks are making an apperance in causal outfits these days.

With today’s technology creative leaders have finer control over the desired low tech effects of the technologies in use. This is because most of these effects are fabricated in post processing. With this precision just the right amount of distortion can be achieved precisely where it’s wanted to produce the perfect aesthetic.

Albums

This fanmade jackboyz album cover has most of the possible 80s / retro effects a digital image can have. Rocking rough graining, the compact disc stamp, scracthes, scuffed edges, a pink hue and vaporwave esque parallell lines it would be hard to cram more aesthetic into this image.

Ginger by BROCKHAMPTON may not be the best example but we do see graining and some mild scratching. It's a superb example that pop culture of all levels are influenced by the aesthetic. And I'd like to say that I spot a mullet there.

Sports single You Are the Right One has a dominant synth throughout the entirety of the song that almost on its own gives the song its 80s vibe. Accompaning the synth are various guitar and vocal effects adding to the aesthetic. The album cover features a photograph with a reddish green tone with a tasteful grain. And finally to top it of a sans serif font with a gradient.

Have you recognized any influence of this trend in different places? Did we miss something crucial? Drop a comment and let us know.

Photographs

Mad feels on this photograph. Slightly out of focus like taken on a analog camera. Optical boque blur. Also, real grains from either digital zoom pixelation and poor ISO settings or digital grains from post processing. No matter from where I love it. Pulled from Instagram.

Photgraph by Zoé Bassetto. The pink hue is 80s on its own in my opinion. The palm tree is within the aesthetic. And the gas station hints at the naive golden era of fossil fuels.

Graphic Design

This photograph of an illustration by Jens Müller feels like a window back into the era of early digital image processing. An era where gradients was a part of a cutting edge tool set. The washed out colors adds to the aesthetic as well.

An digital image made by Slovenia based Voja, while being a product of modern digital techniques is able to capture the feeling of 80s / early 90s illustration through its use of repeating shapes. The shimmering glossy look resembles the early adoptions of photo realistic effects from 1980s photo manipulation programs.

Concept by Nicolas Turki Duschesnay. An contempory take on the old trustworthy casesste tape.