// THE SKIN
DESIGN ERAS
This site can be redrawn in 50 styles from design history, from 1895 to now. Each is a reaction to the one before: its palette, its type, its structure, and a background that goes with it. Scroll and the whole site turns into each era as you pass; wherever you stop is the one you keep. The backgrounds themselves are explained on /bg.
Scroll through them
Drag the slider and the page follows; scroll the page and the slider follows. The hue dial turns every colour round the wheel, the harmonies move the accents, and AUTO hands the colours and the background back to the era. Your choice is kept in this browser.
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1895
Art Nouveau
Reacting against Victorian clutter and the ugliness of industry. Ink vines grown by a fluid solver.
BACKGROUND its own: INK // FLUID
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1919
Constructivism
Reacting against bourgeois decoration: art as a machine. Wedges and diagonals over gliders on a working tiling.
BACKGROUND its own: HIGHWAY GLIDERS // 3.3.3.4.4
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1923
Bauhaus
Reacting against Art Nouveau's ornament: form follows function.
BACKGROUND its own: COMPOSITION
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1925
Art Deco
Reacting against Art Nouveau's organic curves with machine-age geometry and gold.
BACKGROUND its own: SUNBURST
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1930
Modernism
Reacting against historicism: function first. Quiet backgrounds: a node mesh, contours, facets.
BACKGROUND one of NODE MESH, TOPOGRAPHY or LOW POLY
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1955
Mid-Century Modern
Reacting against pre-war ornament with atoms and boomerangs. An atomic node mesh in mustard and teal.
BACKGROUND its own: NODE MESH
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1957
Swiss
Reacting against decoration and emotion: the grid, a grotesk, one red.
BACKGROUND its own: THE GRID
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1960
Brutalism
Reacting against polish: raw, structural, unfinished. Bare automata, exposed like rebar.
BACKGROUND one of CONWAY // B3/S23, TURING MAZE // 4.8.8 or TURING MITOSIS // 3.12.12
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1962
Pop Art
Reacting against abstract expressionism's seriousness. Halftone cards over a composition in process colours.
BACKGROUND its own: COMPOSITION
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1965
Minimalism
Reacting against visual noise: less, but better. Almost nothing moves: a sparse mesh or contours, one red.
BACKGROUND one of NODE MESH or TOPOGRAPHY
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1967
Psychedelic
Reacting against Swiss Style's strict grid: melt it. Neon ink swirling in a fluid solver.
BACKGROUND its own: INK // FLUID
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1972
70s Retro
Reacting against the sixties' chaos with warm, rounded calm. Warm contour lines and rainbow stripes.
BACKGROUND its own: TOPOGRAPHY
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1977
Punk
Reacting against corporate polish and 70s excess: cut, paste, photocopy. Photocopied cellular automata under taped-up cards.
BACKGROUND one of CYCLIC TRIANGLES or CONWAY // B3/S23
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1980
Post-Modernism
Reacting against modernist rules by breaking them on purpose. Low-poly facets and tilted headings.
BACKGROUND one of LOW POLY, TOPOGRAPHY or NODE MESH
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1981
Memphis
Reacting against modernism's good taste: clash everything. Squiggles on the cards, a clashing composition behind.
BACKGROUND its own: COMPOSITION
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1982
New Wave
Reacting against Swiss rigidity: layered, angled, gradient. Outlined type over a low-poly mesh.
BACKGROUND its own: LOW POLY
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1983
Italo Disco
Reacting against rock's grit: chrome, lasers, the dancefloor. Chrome type over a laser horizon.
BACKGROUND its own: SYNTH HORIZON
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1984
Synthwave
Reacting against rock's grit with chrome, lasers and a sunset grid.
BACKGROUND its own: SYNTH HORIZON
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1985
80s Editorial
Reacting against mass-market blandness with big serif confidence. A magazine grid that rearranges itself.
BACKGROUND its own: THE GRID
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1990
Deconstructivism
Reacting against legibility itself: cut up the page. Glyph rain inked onto paper, headings knocked off true.
BACKGROUND its own: GLYPH RAIN
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1992
Grunge
Reacting against the clean corporate look: distress it. Dirty automata and rain under photocopy noise.
BACKGROUND one of CYCLIC TRIANGLES, CONWAY // B3/S23 or GLYPH RAIN
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1994
Experimental Type
Reacting against the grid's obedience: type as image. Outlined type, acid green, rain and spirals.
BACKGROUND one of GLYPH RAIN, CYCLIC TRIANGLES or RPS SPIRALS // 3.4.6.4
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1996
Web 1.0
Reacting against print: grey bevels, Times, blue links, a starfield.
BACKGROUND its own: STARFIELD // 1996
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1999
Y2K
Reacting against 90s grunge with cold, liquid optimism. Chrome type, bubbles rising through ice.
BACKGROUND its own: BUBBLES
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2000
Bubblegum
Reacting against Y2K's cold chrome: make it sweet. Glossy pills and pink bubbles.
BACKGROUND its own: BUBBLES
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2001
Cyberpop
Reacting against beige computing: anime-bright tech. A neon vector swarm.
BACKGROUND its own: VECTOR SWARM
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2002
Chromecore
Reacting against flatness: everything liquid metal. Chrome type over a faceted metal mesh.
BACKGROUND its own: LOW POLY
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2007
Web 2.0 gloss
Reacting against flat Web 1.0 pages: glossy pills, rounded boxes, aqua.
BACKGROUND its own: BUBBLES
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2009
Skeuomorphism
Reacting against abstract UI: make it feel like real objects. Stitched linen cards over contour maps.
BACKGROUND its own: TOPOGRAPHY
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2010
Steampunk
Reacting against sleek tech: brass, rivets, visible gears. A brass sunburst, riveted frames.
BACKGROUND its own: SUNBURST
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2011
Glitch
Reacting against clean digital perfection: let it break. Channel-split neon and glyph rain, glitching often.
BACKGROUND its own: GLYPH RAIN
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2012
Vaporwave
Reacting against consumerist optimism with irony and Windows 95. Bevelled dialogs over a pink sunset grid.
BACKGROUND its own: SYNTH HORIZON
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2013
Flat
Reacting against skeuomorphism's fake leather and glass. Flat colour fields over flat-shaded backgrounds.
BACKGROUND one of LOW POLY, TOPOGRAPHY or NODE MESH
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2016
Luxury Minimal
Reacting against flashy startup branding: whisper, in serif. A gold sunburst on cream, very quietly.
BACKGROUND its own: SUNBURST
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2017
Gen X Soft Club
Reacting against loud web design: soft focus, translucent calm. Frosted glass over slow ink.
BACKGROUND its own: INK // FLUID
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2018
Future Funk
Reacting against vaporwave's melancholy: sped up, pink, dancing. Outlined disco type over the horizon grid.
BACKGROUND its own: SYNTH HORIZON
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2018
Tech Spec
Reacting against marketing fluff: just the numbers. Spec sheets, part numbers, automata in the margins.
BACKGROUND one of CONWAY // B3/S23, TURING MAZE // 4.8.8, HIGHWAY GLIDERS // 3.3.3.4.4 or KAGOME SPACESHIPS
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2019
Acid
Reacting against tasteful minimalism: distorted chrome, acid green. Glitched type over acid green: a swarm, a food chain, ink.
BACKGROUND one of VECTOR SWARM, RGB FOOD CHAIN or INK // FLUID
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2019
Neumorphism
Reacting against flat design's lack of depth: extrude it softly. Soft extruded cards over something faint.
BACKGROUND one of NODE MESH, TOPOGRAPHY or LOW POLY
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2019
Kidcore
Reacting against adult minimalism: crayons, stickers, toys. Wobbly cards and a pile of sticker blocks.
BACKGROUND its own: BLOCKS
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2020
Glassmorphism
Reacting against neumorphism's low contrast: frosted glass over colour. Frosted cards over neon ink.
BACKGROUND its own: INK // FLUID
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2020
Naive
Reacting against polish: draw it the way a child would. Crayon shapes and hand-drawn cards.
BACKGROUND its own: COMPOSITION
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2021
Neubrutalism
Reacting against a decade of minimal “blanding”: thick outlines, hard shadows.
BACKGROUND its own: BLOCKS
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2022
Cyberminimalism
Reacting against cyberpunk's noise: sparse HUD, hairlines. Hairline spec cards over something quiet.
BACKGROUND one of NODE MESH, TOPOGRAPHY or CONWAY // B3/S23
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2023
Maximalism
Reacting against minimalism: more of everything, at once. Squiggles, serif and a colour war.
BACKGROUND one of CHROMA // SPECIES WARS, RGB FOOD CHAIN, KURAMOTO SPIRALS or INK // FLUID
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2023
Gothic
Reacting against cheerful tech branding: blackletter and blood. Blood-red glyph rain behind ornate frames.
BACKGROUND its own: GLYPH RAIN
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2024
Type Doodles
Reacting against perfect type: letters drawn by hand. Marker lettering over a doodled background.
BACKGROUND one of NODE MESH, TOPOGRAPHY or CONWAY // B3/S23
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2024
Surveillance
Reacting against privacy: the camera's view, timestamped. Green phosphor, REC dots, a camera on every card.
BACKGROUND its own: GLYPH RAIN
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2025
Blueprint
Reacting against glossy renders: show the drawing, with dimensions. White linework on blue; the grid rearranges like a drafting table.
BACKGROUND its own: THE GRID
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2026
Terminal
Now: this site as it was, neon on void, with the glitch turned down.
BACKGROUND any of them: the whole rotation