Inspiration: 35 Unique Examples of Vintage Design

Inspiration: 35 Unique Examples of Vintage Design

on Jun 3rd 2010 with 43 comments

In this collection of retro-themed websites, you’ll find some excellent designs that will leave you in awe. Vintage websites have been quite popular in the last year, and I hope that these examples will inspire you to create your own!

Edgepoint Church

Target Scope

Visit Cascadia

Radio

Efinterns

Prahba

Jeffrey Sarmiento

CottonSeedoil Tour

SottoCosto

Fisticuff Design

Dollar Dreadful

Level2d

AdaptD

Basmati Tree

Thunderfuel

Lana Landis

Hebatec

No Limit

Tnvacation

Mediaboom

Tennessee Vacation

DeVotchKa

The Archer Group

Macsbeer

Singularity Concepts

Liga RetrÙ

Mediaboom

Tricycle Terror

Big Rig Design

Lanikai

Miss Havisham’s Attic

Casino Lemonade

Sensi Soft

Custom Design

Sourcebits

Did we miss any cool vintage web designs? If so, please share them with us within the comment section.

 
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  • http://www.ate5.com Jordan Walker

    Those are all great examples to follow when designing a vintage theme website.

  • http://apps.facebook.com/ctagame Josh

    Here’s another; it’s an neat little popcorn shop downtown in a town in Texas. http://www.momandpopcorn.com/

  • http://www.madeofwin.de Ben

    Though I like these kind of postings, I dont know whether they reach the quality standards of nettuts+. Nethertheless gj and thanks!

    • w1sh

      Disagree.

      When they are full of good-quality examples, they are nice.

      There was one a while back “Examples of Red Websites” or something, that was balls though.

  • http://www.xcellence-it.com/ Xcellence IT

    great collections… thank you

  • http://www.8segment.pl Wojciech P. P. Zieliński

    What can I say… wonderfull designs.

  • http://www.andrislinz.ch Andris

    This is a nice collection with some superoutstanding design in it, though I don’t think the vintage style will be trend again in 2010.

  • http://www.sz-media.org Sz-Media.org

    Yeah, great collection, but isnt that a thing for psd tuts? ;)

  • http://www.actulogo.fr ActuLogo

    I would have add FontDiner http://www.fontdiner.com/main.html that is specialized in retro fonts

  • http://www.nouveller.com/ Benjamin Reid

    While they’re all very good looking, this style will definitely die out due to the heavy use of images, IMO. Nice collection never the less.

    • Bram

      Do you mean the Vintage Style or the heavy use of images? With faster download speeds every time I expect even heavier use of images. We’re not here to take a step backwards, are we?

      • Batfan

        Agreed, Bam.

      • Bart

        Keep in mind that the download speed is not the most important thing, there is something like a data traffic limitation for a webspace.

  • http://www.tenaxtechnologies.com Development for IT Startups

    This is a nice collection with some superoutstanding design in it.

  • Frodo

    I know another site looking like a vintage cinema : http://www.galactiscinema.fr

  • http://tzappa.net tzappa

    Cooool! Thank you.

  • http://inlikealion.com In Like A Lion

    Actually, I think many of these were very poor examples of design in general, and successful vintage design in particular. Very subpar, 2009 SmashingMag-esque article.

  • Batfan

    Excellent collection! Ignore the nay-sayers, Nettuts.

    Some people just don’t appreciate vintage design.

    • http://inlikealion.com In Like A Lion

      Actually, no. It’s not valid to say our criticism of the post is negated because you claim we must a lack of appreciation for the subject. I love vintage design, but I don’t think that this list is full of great examples. Also, many are hardly ‘Unique’ or ‘Inspirational’ as the title claims.

      For instance, see Liga RetrÙ, Big Rig Design, Miss Havisham’s Attic, etc… Many are poorly designed, or not even ‘vintage design’ at all, but merely have photorealistic messed up stuff like torn paper. Torn paper for the sake of torn paper (or polaroids) isn’t inspiration and hardly lives up to the quality that Tuts+ normally strives for.

      This list wasn’t very focused, had poor quality content, and valued a higher “# of X Things” in the title than using only content that was truly unique or inspirational.

      As I said, this sort of practice will devolve into the sort of” List Of” posts that Smashing was slavering out last year. Not what we expect from Envato.

      • JN

        I second the Lion.

      • Dom

        Thirded, what’s up with Tuts+ at the moment?

  • http://jaydesign.com Jay Design

    These kind of suck.

    Talk to me when you have something useful to share.

  • http://cebucebucebu.blogspot.com Elsie Dabney

    another vintage fan here..i may not be able to criticize this list much as i’m not an expert..i love looking at colorful and well-designed websites..i really dont mind if they’re unique or not as long as they’re not seen too often

  • http://showcasewp.com/ Showcase WP

    Wow, great colection of vintage design. I love this kind of art, it’s so pretty. But for my projects my style is more minimalist and web 2.0, focused on usability.

  • rob

    crap….now this?
    like the web isn’t full of showcase of every single thing….

  • http://inspirationfeed.com inspirationfeed

    What a great collection, some interesting designs here!

  • http://bretglassett.com Bret Glassett

    Here is another:

    http://www.zootshooters.com/

    Bret

  • elkaz

    FYI, the Mediaboom site link is going to Mediaboom.com and not Mediaboom.com/prospectdenim (as shown in the screen shot)

  • http://www.luadesign.co.uk john

    May I be so bold as to add this one to the list? http://www.augustinbousfield.com/

    John

  • http://www.tubebutler.com J.P.

    Great list, I love the site http://www.tubebutler.com . Nice vintage look. Warning: a bit NSFW ;)

  • http://www.didimtoday.com ali

    very interesting designs, l like this

  • http://www.optimaworldwide.com Kyle / Optima Worldwide

    What an awesome compilation! And well-timed too – I’ve been brainstorming with a client who wants a retro-style design, and this helped give us some visual concepts to thrown back and forth! Keep up the great work.

  • http://www.dazzlecat.co.uk DazzleCat Digital Agency

    The almost 1960s tin can look of Thunderfuel is my favourite. Great inspiration there for a new project I am doing. Excellent

  • http://robcomm.net Valerie

    Really surprised you led off with the Edgepoint Church design. It’s been out since at least 2008. That’s ancient in web design. This would be much more interesting if you showed what current vintage design techniques are. Or maybe there aren’t good current examples because no one does vintage anymore?

    FYI–Here’s a roundup post that has the Edgepoint Church design that was published in 2008: http://www.toxel.com/design/2008/12/10/40-beautiful-and-creative-website-footers/

    • http://joomstore.com John Pitchers

      I, too, felt myself cringe a little when I saw Edgepoint Church. It has been featured on many, many roundups for so long it’s old now.

  • http://www.webdesignersblog.net shevaa|webdesignersblog

    Mmm pretty good vintage design collections Kushal Chap… Happy to check all the links… Thanks for sharing…

  • Pablo

    Hi, I made this one to a friend with a retro style, hope you like it, http://www.santagertrudissalta.com.ar

  • http://awesomewallpapers.wordpress.com/ Ben

    Hmm, every Vintage related web design roundup I see usually has Edgepoint Church as one of the examples… oh well it does have a pretty nice design:)

  • http://www.sidwebmonk.com sid

    Hi , i would like to know on tutorials on how to create basic websites like above.

  • niko

    Besides the flash sites, how are most of these sites built? Is it pretty much PSD to HTML?

    I’m a beginner and would like to know how some of the background features are achieved – specifically the bottom of the page. Namely, http://www.efinterns.com/ and http://edgepointchurch.com/. I like how the bottom is not simply a continuous repeat and ends with a design. Looks “complete”

  • http://www.puppetuts.com arjun rk

    Wow this was a great input for me as a designer. Thanks for sharing

  • http://www.adeptpros.com Melissa

    These designs will surely help in my work. I will use them. Thanks for the help!

  • Mani

    Excellent Designs,

    Really attractive heart designs,I will book mark this site on social sites.

    Great application here
    http://www.enterprisemobility.ae/