Retro and vintage designs are one of the new trends in graphic design. Inspired by elements and the design climate from the past, these styles are becoming more and more popular, not only in graphic design but also in marketing, film, arts and more areas.

I grew up surrounded by a vintage style; most of the things my mom used were in that line, so as I grew up, I wanted to copy the style she wore. Vintage and retro styles have been characterized by bringing the old forward into the present, so I have always looked for designs, not only for clothing, but also for the things I use, the posters I have in my house, the designs on my t-shirts, and the fonts I use to create the designs are all in line with vintage retro style. But, let’s get into the real question, what are vintage and retro designs?

Strongly influenced by the time period that they’re inspired by. In vintage and retro designs, elements, trends and motifs from the past are the main characteristics. Not only combining old-fashioned trends with modern styles to have a better appeal in younger audiences, but also using factors such as nostalgia to evoke strong emotions in customers. Nostalgia has a huge value in the marketing industry and it can help increase your sales!

There are other elements that are very notable in vintage retro design such as the neutral pastel colors, backgrounds with noise and grainy or gritty textures. The color palette in these design styles is not very varied; generally, the colors that are used are the ones that were popular in the era that they’re inspired by. A package with these colors and feel, is this vintage-inpisred branding mega bundle.

Image taken from 2000+ Elements Retro & Vintage Branding Mega Bundle

Pale tones are also utilized with pastel colors and contrasted with the black of the edges and letters. Typography is also an important factor. Typecase styles that replicate the aesthetic of past eras are also used to make the old-fashioned style more pure and interesting. Check out this retro vintage fonts bundle if you’d like to explore more about typography in these types of designs.

Image taken from Retro Vintage Fonts Bundle

Currently, a lot of people want to have vintage stuff in their possession. According to a new research from omnichannel customer engagement platform Emarsys, three in five US consumers regularly buy vintage items. A lot of those consumers wish they could revisit the shopping experience of past decades. The study of 2,041 American shoppers found that 23% of these consumers shop vintage to decorate their homes, 19% for sentimental value, and 17% have it as a hobby.

In the 21st century, retro design has won a good amount of popularity, mostly in fashion and product design. Vintage and retro products don’t look like antiques anymore, they are now considered a symbol of modernity (Sueiro Graña, 2023: 116). American graphic designer David Carson said that “Vintage design is like a remix record. You take the best parts of the past and mash them up with something new and different”. This vintage inspired t-shirt design bundle perfectly mixes the past and the modern eras for your designs!

Graphic Elements of Vintage Retro Design

Vintage retro designs are really rare and unique that’s why they have a lot of features, that makes vintage retro designs an option for all that people that wants to show a different style, here are the most common features of vintage retro design that will make you look that way.

• Color Palette: Vintage designs often feature muted, earthy tones or bold, vibrant colors commonly associated with specific time periods. Pastel colors and shades like avocado green, mustard yellow, and burnt orange are frequently used.
• Typography: Fonts and typography styles from past decades are often used in vintage designs. Examples include serif fonts like Times New Roman or classic script fonts. Handwritten or hand-drawn elements may also be incorporated.
• Patterns: Vintage design may include patterns such as floral prints, paisley, polka dots, stripes, or geometric shapes popular in past decades. These patterns are often used in textiles, wallpapers, or as background elements.
• Textures: Textures like distressed or aged effects, as well as materials like wood, metal, or textured paper, are commonly used to evoke a sense of history or nostalgia.
• Illustrations and Graphics: Retro designs may feature illustrations or graphics inspired by vintage advertising, posters, or artwork from specific eras. These illustrations often have a hand-drawn or vintage-inspired aesthetic.
• Iconography: Vintage or retro designs may incorporate iconic symbols or imagery associated with specific time periods, such as retro appliances, vintage automobiles, or iconic cultural symbols.
• Layout and Composition: Vintage design layouts often reflect design trends from past decades, including asymmetrical layouts, collage-style compositions, or use of vintage-inspired frames and borders.

Uses of Vintage Retro Designs

Now that we know more about vintage retro design and its different styles, we can talk about the uses of these types of designs. Here are some:

Graphic Design

Vintage retro designs are naturally linked to graphic design. They evoke a captivating sense of nostalgia, becoming timeless, which make these styles a great marketing tool. You can find them in branding, logos, marketing, posters, and more. 

image taken from 220+ Retro/Vintage Logos & Illustrations Pack

Fashion

The fashion world is constantly changing which makes it hard for trends to stay, only a few surviving with time. However, designers are drawing attention with their vintage-inspired clothes, bringing back the classics from past eras and using the nostalgia of old patterns and fabrics to increase their sales. 

The popularity of vintage fashion in the world can be attributed to the power of the internet and media. The increase in popularity of vintage fashion is related as an alternative for fast fashion, which consumers are trying to escape. “Vintage consumers are trying to escape from this trend and create individual identities for themselves by wearing something unique that is often one of a kind” (DeLong et al. 2005: 26). 

Interior Design

Vintage retro designs have a profound influence in the world on interior design, making spaces timeless and nostalgic. Characterized by the incorporation of  mid-century modern furniture, organic shapes, functional forms and vibrant color palettes that just work in harmony. Currently, combining these old-fashioned inspired interior designs with more modern trends can help you make your home a heaven-made paradise with an amazing personal touch. 

Interior design has won power in the interests of young generations. According to a 2016 study from Statista Research Department that showed the share of consumers with a preference for vintage furniture in the United States by generation, 63% of millennial respondents said that they preferred vintage furniture.

Film

Retro vintage designs play an important role in the world of film. Normally, they’re used to transport audiences to specific eras, complimenting that with beautiful visuals and storytelling. Design is a very important aspect of filmmaking and being able to represent an era as close as it was in reality is essential. This can be evident in the incorporation of styles such as Punk with the neon colors, rebellious posters and gritty set designs or, Gothic which can take us back to old periods of time like the late Middle Age, with dark colors, aged textures and old-style typefaces.

Web Design

In the world of web design, vintage retro designs are used to craft visually captivating and distinct websites, using retro-inspired color palettes like pastels or earth tones. Not only for aesthetics but also because it becomes its own visual language. Old-fashioned typography also plays an important role here giving a nostalgic experience to users. 

From a personal perspective, vintage retro designs are used depending on what they are used for; you can use them from printing t-shirts to decorating the walls of your house with posters. T-shirts have resonated with my vintage personality because I love earth tones and pastel colors and shades like avocado green, mustard yellow, and burnt orange, as well as the typography used in these designs. For posters, I like them to have illustrations with vintage retro characters like old cars, PinUps, Betty Boop, Audrey Hepburn, among others. For typography, I like to use serif fonts like Times New Roman or classic handwriting fonts, and I also like those that incorporate handwritten or hand-drawn elements.

The idea of using vintage is originality, mixing textures, messages, being in line with the vibe of the era, mixing it a bit with the current. Look for colors, fonts, illustrations, textures, and graphics that you like and start creating your designs in the vintage retro line; you won’t regret the authenticity that this style brings.

At Bypeople we always try to use trends to incorporate them into our designs and packages. We choose the packages for our clients, and for this reason we have different design packs that evoke the retro and vintage styles which you can take advantage of in your future projects. 

1100+ Vintage/Retro Designs Bundle: T-Shirts, Illustrations, Badges & More

This package comes with a humongous collection that has over 1100 vintage vector designs ranging from t-shirts and illustrations, logos and badges, to icons, labels, sunbursts, ribbon, fonts and more. This package comes with a humongous collection that has over 1100 vintage vector designs ranging from t-shirts and illustrations, logos and badges, to icons, labels, sunbursts, ribbon, fonts and more. 

Everything in this pack is delivered with vector source files and it contains all the popular vector files like Ai, EPS10, PSD and SVG, 100% vector shapes and editable designs, perfect for all purposes on both print and digital media. In this pack you will also find unusual letterpress styles, engravings, textured lettering and illustrations that feature different themes such as camping, adventure, traveling, sports, surfing, music, mountains, airplanes and more! 

100 Authentic Vintage Style T-Shirt Designs Pack, Ai & EPS Files, Print Ready PNGs Included

This brand new bundle features 100 unique print ready t-shirt designs with an authentic vintage style from the creative talent behind TeooClock. 

This pack comes with 2 separate folders. One folder with 100 ready made t-shirt designs delivered with separate Ai and EPS vector files for each composition as well as high resolution transparent PNG exports, and a second folder with all the individual assets used on each composition grouped in common categories for each and delivered in Ai and EPS vectors, including cars, mountains, girls/men, animals, ornaments, skulls and more! 

100+ Vintage Photo Cutouts – Transparent Background People, Retro Devices, Cars & More

With this pack you can create beautiful retro vintage collages and compositions using a brand new elements package featuring a good variety of vintage magazines and newspaper cutouts that are delivered in high resolution PNG file format. The pack comes with over 100 vintage picture cutouts with transparent backgrounds with a huge variety of image categories, completely isolated on high resolution with themes such as people, vehicles, gadgets, and more.

Retro Vintage Fonts Bundle – 20 Stylish Display Fonts in OTF & TTF Formats

This amazing package contains 20 fonts with unique design styles ranging from old western to black letters, calligraphy, old style characters, vintage business signage and others. This package also comes with desktop fonts in OTF and TTF file format, and includes web font files in WOFF as well.  Another good thing about this collection is that every font included has multilingual support, a variety of OpenType features, which are perfect for branding, t-shirt designs, logos, posters, thumbnails and more!

300+ Vintage Poster Templates Pack, Vector AI, EPS & PDF Formats

This brand new collection of vintage poster templates with over 300 fully editable designs, each one of them with a distinctive retro illustration and typography style that you can use for printables or digital designs. Each template is delivered with fully editable vector source files, including Ai, EPS and PDF files, 100% vector shapes that you can customize however you want: modify shapes, colors, add/remove elements, resize, etc. This pack is amazing for creating content for web, social media and printables.

2000+ Elements Retro & Vintage Branding Mega Bundle: Icons, Textures, Brushes, Vectors & Templates

This massive bundle contains 4 different collections of more than 2000 unique retro, vintage and hipster styled design assets. In these collections you can find: color palettes, icons, paper textures, engraving brushes, vectors, actions and also all kinds of templates and branding items. Featuring totally editable Ai and PSD files, high resolution 300 dpi printable files, commercial extended license to use in commercial projects, free fonts and fully scalable vector files!

1500+ Essential Vintage Vector Elements. Carefully Hand Made. Easily Compose 19th Century Style Print Designs!

This enormous pack contains over 900 vintage ornaments, 109 illustrations, 465 decorative borders and 18 premade design samples. The assets in this bundle were all carefully hand-made with the highest possible quality and come in Ai and EPS formats. With this amazing pack you can save time and create your own distinct and elegant stationery designs. 

 

In conclusion, the resurgence of Vintage and Retro designs has not only changed and revolutionized graphic design, but has made its own notable influence and contributions to other industries like film, web design, marketing, branding and interior design. 

These nostalgia evoking styles have mastered the art of giving the old and outdated a breath of fresh air combining it with more contemporary modern aesthetics that can catch the attention of people of all ages. If you want to benefit from these types of styles and you’re interested in getting a closer look at them. Here we have some amazing Retro Vintage designs for you to check out!