Looking back at my old design folder from 2015 was a real trip

Honestly, I just found a hard drive full of my old design work and it's all flat UI and thin fonts. I used to think that was the peak of clean design. Then I started looking at more vintage stuff, like 70s album covers and old travel posters. The difference is all in the texture and the hand drawn feel. Those old pieces have a soul that my perfect vector shapes just didn't. I spent a whole weekend trying to add that kind of grit back into a new logo project and it changed everything. Anyone else get way more inspo from old physical stuff now instead of just looking at other digital work?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas_young9d ago

Yeah but the grit isn't about being messy... it's about hiding the computer's hand. Perfect vectors feel cold because you can tell a machine made them. Adding a little wobble or a scan texture just makes it feel like a person was involved.

mason.paige9d ago

But isn't the whole point of digital tools to make things cleaner and more perfect? I feel like chasing that old grit just makes things look messy on purpose.