50 Mind-blowing Retro-Style Photoshop Illustrations
Graphic design from the 70s, 80s and 90s has plenty to offer modern-day designers. Here we introduce a bunch of modern-day graphic designers using the best of retro-styles to create incredible and original work that melds the past, the present, and sometimes, the future!
Editor’s note: This tutorial was originally published on Psdtuts in February of 2009.
Nicolas Girard
Nicolas is a freelance designer from Canada. He currently works for MuchMusic doing graphic design work.
James White
James has been in the business for over ten years. During that time he has worked with a variety of clients and projects, from comic books, to posters and everything between.
Defi the Norm
Defi the Norm is from Miami, Florida, and concentrates on vector and Photoshop design. They’ve created some stunning 80s style works.
Jared Nickerson
Below is a picture the designer created for an album cover. Sadly, the design never made it to the cover and is now a T-shirt design.
Sebastian Bentler
Sebastian is a graphic designer with a flair for all things retro. He likes to specialize in designs that mimic the styles of the 70s and 80s. The below projects are just a few from his portfolio that showcase hie abilities to put a modern twist on retro design.
Felipe Rocha
Felipe is a designer and illustrator who can create a variety of styles in a variety of mediums. From standard illustration to create print design, Felipe can handle it all.
Alexis Marcou
If the images below aren’t 100% 80s, I don’t know what is. These illustrations are a prime example of the illustration style that was so popular in the 80′s that it was used in everything from print to motion.
Ed Price
The flyers below created by Ed Price are another great example of adding modern day design elements to a heavily 80′s influenced design.
AJ Dimarucot
AJ is a graphic designer who’s main focus is to create awesome T-shirt designs. Have a look around his portfolio and you’ll see he is pretty amazing at it. This is especially true when it comes to creating retro designs.
Sakke Soini
Last but certainly not least, I bring you the retro mastermind of Sakke Soini. We recently interviewed him here on Psdtuts+, so be sure to check that out. This designer’s work is so amazingly retro that you would think his mind is stuck in some sort of time warp. Brilliant.
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Awesome artists, awesome art :D
i always wanted to learn this style with photoshop and illustrator
Horrible all of them except Defi the Norm and James White…imho
ya gotta love Sakke Soini and Defi The Norm.
dem galleries are so ill!
So Great!
amazing suff
My God!!!!!
I’m having an overdose!
Excellent stuff you have here! Thanks!
It’ll be a new source of inspiration!
Yo, Lovely Collection there ! Awesome Art with awesome colors.. Love’em all.
HOLY SH*T I’M NOW BLIND BY THE AWESOMNESS OF SAKKE SOINI
MIND “BLASTING”!!
Featured here: http://www.presidiacreative.com/web-picks-13/
Beautiful Work!
Very Cool. I love the 80′s metal style logos.
There needs to be more tuts on this website showing how to do things similar to these great artists. The work shown is truly an inspiration.
Interesting, from very cool to very wrong. Still, I don’t want to be remembered too much on the ’80s graphic design …
Love this work
Soini’s robot ladies ARE from the 80s—and 70s and 90s. They’re appropriated from Hajime Sorayama. I’m surprised that none of you have ever seen them.
I can’t be the oldest person on here. I’m only 24.
http://hajimesorayama.com/01works_robot.html
Holy smokers! That is some cool work.
This stuff is awesome
These are amazing, colours, textures, shapes its all going on..
Sakke Soini is rockin and particularly James White’s stuff blows my mind
Thanking you
I think all the above artworks are based on the work of Scott Hansen (iso50.com) when I saw his website for the first time, no retro artwork on the net.
where can I buy posters of this stuff??
verriy nace
Great collection, congratulations, doing very good work here
good style
What a great design collections…I don’t know when or how to make like that..
cuuul stuff?sorayama great think
{ Buenas Imagenes }
Cool…!
Thank you for this beautiful art.
Wow great post!!!!!!!!!
fabulous….
I love the retro dirty scratched looking designs. Some really good inspirational pieces here
Great collection! Lots of inspiration for future designs. Thanks!
I think you guys missed Scott Hansen, from ISO50. Top quality retro-style design!
I love the way Sakke uses a little haze and grunge overlay on the entire compositions to simulate the look of printed materials from the 80s! I dunno if it was the printing techniques, the ink, or the predominant use of matte paper, but Sakke captures perfectly the look of those retro prints!
Some of these are pretty awesome. Quite a few of them are not.
We have already seen those designs so many times !!! Show us new things.
Amazing collections
Thanks for this showcase :) Nice collections.
Nice Tutorial, Thanks for the postings.
Signalnoise is really excellent!
All the creation in this post looks pretty ok to me, but In my opinion, Nicolas Girard’s creations are the best.
Awesome collection.Thanks for sharing.
TEACH/EMPLOY ME
mind blowing
some of these are pretty awesome, love this kind of stuff in photoshop
After several months… it all still is very eyecatching, funky n fresh. Opening some nice portals towards the feeling of endless possibilities. well… without over reacting … ;) nice work
p!atd shirts!!!! omg. nice!