Vaporwave Origins: the Miami Vice aesthetic

[Late Night Logposter]

I'm trying to trace the origins of vaporwave & synthwave, namely actual vintage things from the 80s (and 90s) that inspired these revivalist genres.

Synthwave can be traced back to the OutRun series, the infamous laser grids, the broken sun from the license plate from Back to the Future (still looking for more examples), the magenta color from Bladerunner's neon signs & early IBM color displays. (that's just part of it, I'm sure there's more)

While both vaporwave & synthwave draw inspiration from Miami Vice, its influence on vaporwave might be stronger. The defining characteristics of the Miami Vice look seem to consist of soft pastel colors of light pink & blue, relaxed white suits, sun glasses, palm trees, and perhaps to a lesser extent whatever else you see in the pics below (the Roman columns & busts, the glass blocks). Together they comprise a certain 'tropical coolness'.

With this thread, I wish to explore the extent of the influence of Miami Vice (since I'm told the show was quite influential during the 80s) and perhaps the extent of which Miami Vice was influenced by pre-existing trends.

 

[Late Night Logposter]

Attached below are selections from Mead's 'Super Shades' series of folders, book covers, scrapbooks, notebook paper from the late 80s. To me, they bare a resemblance to the Miami Vice aesthetic. The influence of memphis design is noted.

 

[wavve-creator]

Agroachan colors!

 

[polar_coyote]

Mmmmmm I got one of those tingly good time feels looking at all those pics, lol. I love the Miami Vice aesthethic. I remember those "Super shades" - or rather, I've never heard of the original, but I remember those color palettes everywhere. Those colors look so good together, gah.

There's also that 90s "Jazz" cup design (the turqoise crayon smear with the purple squiggly line through). It's not exactly "Miami Vice", but sort of adjacent. Fresh, positive, a sort of relaxed, breezy cool feeling.

I dont understand where the sculptures/busts comes from. The only thing I can think of that those may stem from, is that in the 80s and 90s, you'd see like maybe pictured encylopedias. I remember that in the 90s, it was huge if you had a big ass series of encyclopedia with colored pictures. Or hell, even childrens/YA books about certain interests would feature stuff like that. Like I had some books about space travel, dinosaurs, that sort of stuff. And the images on the front would sometimes be sort of what Vaporwave looks like it is inspired by.

Same with all those random ass CD roms too. Anyone remember those? You'd get them with like magazines or fuck if I remember. My dad had a few of them, and I feel like they would also either feature stuff like columns/busts on the front (or a similar "tone" of art). I have l some vague memories of dad fucking around on his PC with these weirdo CDs that had like "experiences" on them, or sometimes similar to games/quizzes or something. I'm almost certain one of the games/demos he tried was of "Sophie's World". But I know there were more, and they had similar vibes. Most of it was prob dime store shit, but still.

I've included a screen shot I found from the Sophie's World videogame from 1997. I dont know if the busts/columns/statues-aesthethic of vaporwave came from the 80s/90s educational books/encyclopedia styles/weirdo PC experiences, but I wouldn't be surprised.



edit: oh i forgot to say, another inspiration may have been the Windows 98 experiences. Like, I remember how hyped everyone were over the screensavers and stuff. Especially if you had all those extra ones. Granted, I dont recall if anyone had those greek/roman inspired vibes, but there was def a certain type of vibe going on with a few of those. Was it called Microsoft Plus or something.. hm

 

[Late Night Logposter]

I dont understand where the sculptures/busts comes from. The only thing I can think of that those may stem from, is that in the 80s and 90s, you'd see like maybe pictured encylopedias. I remember that in the 90s, it was huge if you had a big ass series of encyclopedia with colored pictures. Or hell, even childrens/YA books about certain interests would feature stuff like that. Like I had some books about space travel, dinosaurs, that sort of stuff. And the images on the front would sometimes be sort of what Vaporwave looks like it is inspired by.

Same with all those random ass CD roms too. Anyone remember those? You'd get them with like magazines or fuck if I remember. My dad had a few of them, and I feel like they would also either feature stuff like columns/busts on the front (or a similar "tone" of art). I have l some vague memories of dad fucking around on his PC with these weirdo CDs that had like "experiences" on them, or sometimes similar to games/quizzes or something. I'm almost certain one of the games/demos he tried was of "Sophie's World". But I know there were more, and they had similar vibes. Most of it was prob dime store shit, but still.

I've included a screen shot I found from the Sophie's World videogame from 1997. I dont know if the busts/columns/statues-aesthethic of vaporwave came from the 80s/90s educational books/encyclopedia styles/weirdo PC experiences, but I wouldn't be surprised.
View attachment 137179

I'm not sure about the origins of that either but it looks like it was part of what has been termed 'Utopian Scholastic'. I assumed the Roman columns/busts in vaporwave stemmed from Miami Vice interior design but what do I know. It could be just be part of the childhood nostalgia for the 90s. Vaporwave isn't exclusive to things from the 80s after all.

 

[polar_coyote]

I'm not sure about the origins of that either but it looks like it was part of what has been termed 'Utopian Scholastic'. I assumed the Roman columns/busts in vaporwave stemmed from Miami Vice interior design but what do I know. It could be just be part of the childhood nostalgia for the 90s. Vaporwave isn't exclusive to things from the 80s after all.

Ohhh yeah, Utopian Scholastic is a pretty good term for it! I of course dont know for sure, it was just a theory. I dont remember columns/busts being a huge part of the miami vice interiors, although they were obviously featured. Interesting topic, for sure.

 

[Pliskin]