Celebration Of Vintage and Retro Design — Smashing Magazine (2024)

• 7 min read
• Inspiration,Showcases,Paintings,Retro,Vintage

Retro and vintage designs are often considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull. That’s not true. Although compared to modern design, retro is mostly a completely different realm, it has a large variety of benefits modern graphic designers often tend to overlook. And that’s a pity. Because we, as designers, can learn a lot from it.

Nostalgic designs arise feelings, awake memories and better manage to involve broad range of readers even although they don’t really realize it. Furthermore, retro can look cool and offer readers or visitors something they haven’t expected at all. So why not try to impress them with some impressive vintage art for a change?

You may also want to take a look at the following related posts:

• Retro and Vintage In Modern Web Design
• 35 Beautiful Vintage and Retro Photoshop Tutorials
• Showcase Of Beautiful Vintage and Retro Signage

Below you’ll find the celebration of retro and vintage design — ads, illustrations, book covers, pins and posters from 1920-1980s. The images weren’t necessarily created in the mid of 20th century. Vintage is living today which is why this post also features artists and designers who make use of the vintage and retro style in their works.

Please notice: if after reading this post you’ll experience some need for buying ice cream, chewing gum or eating sausages, it’s not our fault.

Retro Cosmic

Retro CosmicDesigns by James White.

Robot Rock!Daft Punk’s recent cover is stylish and cool: retro is in.

projectEvgeniy Kiselev’s design project.

Andy GilmorePlayful colors in the retro-look.

Packaging and Advertisem*nt

Ice Cream ManA contemporary illustration.

Fortunello Advertisem*ntThis one is so effective! We’ve bought us an ice-cream immediately after we’ve seen this ad.

Knitting and spool kit

Hudson - Circus CPage from “Circus Alphabet”, a Whitman Tell-A-Tale Book, 1954. Illustrated by Patric Hudson.

Boys and GirlsBetty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cook Book, 1965.

Jantzen SwimsuitsDesigned by Pete Hawley, 1949.

Petri WineEverything tastes better with Petri Wine. Designed by Nick Carter in 1949.

Say their names!The Thinking Book by Adelaide Hall, pictures by Dagmar Wilson, 1963 (1970 ed.).

Remarkable!A mid-century ad print.

Kiss of perfection‘Teen Oct. 1961.

Soviet Champagne AdSimple and beautiful.

25 Project“Southern California has this stupid “Click It, Or Ticket” slogan for fastening your safety belt. But they also just have the boring silhouette “Fasten Your Safety Belt” signs around, these would be much cuter!”

Licor del PoloA Spanish advertisem*nt of the Licor del Polo, 1960.

Wrigley’s Spearmint gum adWrigley’s Spearmint gum ad from Real America Magazine April 1935.

Magazine Ad - Scout (USA)1961 Magazine Advertisem*nt. “Meet the Scout: a whole new idea in low-cost transportation”. International Harvester Company.

Car ad1948 Oldsmobile Series “60” Convertible Coupe.

Skin creme adDo you actually believe that this ad is from 1970s? TV Radio Mirror, July 1972.

Space ArtBohn Aluminum & Brass, 1947.

Colossal co*cktails“Back of an old matchbook purchased on eBay, of course. Would make a great party invite.”

Diabolical Appliance Mavens“Life magazine”, March 9th, 1953.

Calendar Hotpoint December1953 advertising calendar for Hotpoint Appliances, featuring “All Electric” kitchens - December.

1957 Secret Squadron Official Manual - coverFrom the “1957 Secret Squadron Official Manual and Code Book” — a promotional item from Ovaltine, sponsors of the Captain Midnight TV series. The Captain’s airplane was called the “Silver Dart.”

Flight through instrumentsTelstar Logistics: “Flight thru Instruments” and the Fine Art of Instructional Illustration.

Traffic of the FutureRetro-futurism.

1960’s Advertising - Packaging - Superga (Italy)1969 Packaging. “Superga”, Advertising Office: Unimark International. Torino, Italy

Vote! poster

I Wake Up ScreamingClassic. How many books with such covers have you read in your life? Book cover from 1941.

Vintage Pins and Vintage Buttons

Birthday Surprise!

Brooch Cluster-Retro Blue Dots On Brown

Buttons

Vintage 4-H buttons

fans

Button Sets

Crafting 365, day 173 - pink teacups

Posters and Typography

1960’s Advertising - Magazine Ad - Film special (Italy)1969 Magazine Advertisem*nt. “Film Special: bimestrale sui problemi della comunicazione audiovisia”. Advertising Office: Studio S & F Cappellato. Milano, Italy

Scott HansenScott Hansen’s work is extremely powerful. These poster impress with the effective use of colors and geometric forms.

TipógrafiaA poster with a nice pattern. Simple and effective.

TV AdA retro-poster from 70s.

Ulrich Schnauss PosterA poster for the Electronica concert of Ulrich Schnauss.

Retro DVD BookletA clean DVD-booklet in a retro-look.

For The Love Of Letters PosterNick Sherman with an interesting use of letters.

Graphis Annual - ¹⁹⁶⁵⁄₆₆“Ad for a printers by Karl Gerstner. This series of ads changed over the years it was used by simply changing the colour of each plate and the order in which they overprinted. “

Graphis Diagrams 1974Graphics Design from the 70s.

ArchigraphiaOlympic Pictogram designed by Otl Aicher in 70s.

Thirty years of design at MITA classic by Jacqueline S Casey.

Vintage Logos CollectionCollection of vintage logos from a mid-70’s edition of the book World of Logotypes.

B&WOutstanding typographics posters from 1969.

Five British Graphic DesignersA timeless poster created in 1969. “Five British Graphic Designers”, by Studio Coppola from Milano, Italy.

Say yes! to analog designYes studio hooked up a sweet 12″ cover for the UK band the stand. The album is from 2005.

são paulo - braSilSão paulo, Brazil, by Murilo Parra Contro.

Book CoverA book cover with an interesting use of geometric forms.

Flight through instrumentsTelstar Logistics: “Flight thru Instruments” and the Fine Art of Instructional Illustration.

Traffic of the FutureRetro-futurism.

1960’s Advertising - Packaging - Superga (Italy)1969 Packaging. “Superga”, Advertising Office: Unimark International. Torino, Italy

Vote! poster

I Wake Up ScreamingClassic. How many books with such covers have you read in your life? Book cover from 1941.

Vintage Pins and Vintage Buttons

Birthday Surprise!

Brooch Cluster-Retro Blue Dots On Brown

Buttons

Vintage 4-H buttons

fans

Button Sets

Crafting 365, day 173 - pink teacups

Posters and Typography

1960’s Advertising - Magazine Ad - Film special (Italy)1969 Magazine Advertisem*nt. “Film Special: bimestrale sui problemi della comunicazione audiovisia”. Advertising Office: Studio S & F Cappellato. Milano, Italy

Scott HansenScott Hansen’s work is extremely powerful. These poster impress with the effective use of colors and geometric forms.

TipógrafiaA poster with a nice pattern. Simple and effective.

TV AdA retro-poster from 70s.

Ulrich Schnauss PosterA poster for the Electronica concert of Ulrich Schnauss.

Retro DVD BookletA clean DVD-booklet in a retro-look.

For The Love Of Letters PosterNick Sherman with an interesting use of letters.

Graphis Annual - ¹⁹⁶⁵⁄₆₆“Ad for a printers by Karl Gerstner. This series of ads changed over the years it was used by simply changing the colour of each plate and the order in which they overprinted. “

Graphis Diagrams 1974Graphics Design from the 70s.

ArchigraphiaOlympic Pictogram designed by Otl Aicher in 70s.

Thirty years of design at MITA classic by Jacqueline S Casey.

Vintage Logos CollectionCollection of vintage logos from a mid-70’s edition of the book World of Logotypes.

B&WOutstanding typographics posters from 1969.

Five British Graphic DesignersA timeless poster created in 1969. “Five British Graphic Designers”, by Studio Coppola from Milano, Italy.

Say yes! to analog designYes studio hooked up a sweet 12″ cover for the UK band the stand. The album is from 2005.

são paulo - braSilSão paulo, Brazil, by Murilo Parra Contro.

Book CoverA book cover with an interesting use of geometric forms.

Beethoven PosterA minimalistic poster from 1955.

Burundi 57Beautiful old-stylish typographic poster.

Last Click

Retro Toy PackagingPackaging design goes vintage.

A Retro BusBuses can also smile. Cutie!

knick knacksHow sweet is that? Sculptures from the last century.

Sausage!OK, now it’s time for a coffee break.