Retrophilia and Video Games: Alex Varanese
January 5th, 2012 | By: Benhttp://vimeo.com/29289993
We talk too much. Let’s let Alex Varanese - he of Danton Diphthong (video above) - describe his if-I-could-go-back-in-time Alt/1977 series himself. It’s new to the Thumbtack Press collection, and he’s a better writer than us anyway:
“I’ve explored that idea [of what I would do if I could go back in time] 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 (below) and a handheld video game system (below). 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.
The irony is that all post-modern, smugly self-referential retro porn aside, I’d gladly trade in my immaculately designed 21st century gadgets for these hideously clunky, faux-wood-paneled pieces of über-kitsch. Sorry, Apple.”
Very well. You can see the rest of Alex’s TTP collection, including some incredible highway prints, here.
[...] we featured Alex Varanese in our weekly blast because his stuff is killing these days. It’s like he’s on creative speed or something. [...]
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[...] It still has that sort of nostalgic appeal to the aesthetics of a previous generation like the Alt/1977 series, and it still has that focus on specific purveyors of culture and personality that you get [...]