ALT/1977: We Are Not Time Travellers

Uploaded to: The Behance Network
Created: March 2010
By: Alex Varanese

"What would you do if you could travel back in time? Assassinate Marilyn Monroe? Go on a date with Hitler? Obviously. But here's what I'd do after that: grab all the modern technology I could find, take it to the late 70's, superficially redesign it all to blend in, start a consumer electronics company to unleash it upon the world, then sit back as I rake in billions, trillions, or even millions of dollars.

I've explored that idea in this series by re-imagining four common products from 2010 as if they were designed in 1977: an mp3 player, a laptop, a mobile phone and a handheld video game system. I then created a series of fictitious but stylistically accurate print ads to market them, as well as a handful of abstract posters (you know, just for funsies).

I've learned that there is no greater design element than the anachronism. I've learned that the strongest contrast isn't spatial or tonal but historical. I've learned that there's retro, and then there's time travel."

Various - Bugged Out Classics by Zip

Designed by Zip and featured at http://www.zipdesign.co.uk, I really like the aesthetic created for this compilation from the techno-oriented Bugged Out club night. The designers claim this is "lo-fi tech" and it's that use of ASCII art that links it closely with the music. Being a 'classics' collection, it is yesterday's forward-thinking machine music and is ultimately restricted by the technology of its era. The artwork seems to heighten that concept of retro-futurism.

The Future of Album Art

From: PSFK
Date: 16/04/08

While old-style album artwork is drawing its last breath, digital album art is taking on a life of its own. As Wired reported last year, there are a number of designers bringing advanced digital techniques to the operating table—online contests, liner-note fly-throughs and DVD-style menus, for example. George White Warner Music Group’s senior VP of strategy and product development, said:

“We’ve been looking at a few technologies (for digital album art), and have been trying to bring these to Apple, to encourage them to bring that level of experience to the iPod,” says White. “A very simple demonstration that we’ve done takes the Gnarls Barkley liner notes and does a fly-through (using Adobe Flash Lite). You’re actually moving through the lyrics and artwork. It’s sort of like a theme park ride through the album. It’s really, really cool-looking on an iPod.”

More recently, Wired pointed to a blog from London-based graphic designer Phil Clandillon called Sleevelessness, which documents and explores the changing role of graphic design and the web in promoting music. Clandillon recently pointed out the widget for Radiohead’s In Rainbows and Justice’s video for “DVNO”.

Now we’re noticing artists on MySpace using animated artwork to gain attention on the over-satured site. Zeegisbreathing points us to a band called Discovery (a side project from one of the members of Vampire Weekend) that is using a psychedelic flash-coded cover to stand out. @&*$*rw*#&we(@@#@…. Woah, sorry, we think we just had a seizure.

Jamboxx for the iPad

A great find by Amy [thanks again!] in the iTunes App store. Developed by Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, LLC "Jamboxx takes you back to the days of mixtapes and boom boxes with an 80s-inspired interface that'll get you nodding your head to the beat in no time".