this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Cassette Futurism

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Welcome to Cassette Futurism Lemmy and Mbin Community.

A place to share and discuss Cassette Futurism: media where the technology closely matches the computers and technology of the 70s and 80s.

Whether it's bright colors and geometric shapes, the tendency towards stark plainness, or the the lack of powerful computers and cell phones, Cassette Futurism includes: Cassettes, ROM chips, CRT displays, computers reminiscent of microcomputers like the Commodore 64, freestanding hi-fi systems, small LCD displays, and other analog technologies.

See this blog to know more.


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The designer is Kostya Petrenko (aka kxdgraphics on IG)

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Am I an old fart or most of these logos look better than their current iterations?!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

Yes and yes

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Gosh I miss the days when logos leveraged font choices.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

You will get Helvetica and you will be happy with it! /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Damn, the music and the aesthetics of the logos in the vid make the digital future actually seem bright, hopeful and exciting.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Man I wish we’d go back to fun and unique logos. Now everything is minimalist lower case crap that looks the same

[–] [email protected] 89 points 4 days ago (5 children)

What, you don't like every app icon being a white logo on a rounded blue square?

(go count yours, I personally have 19)

[–] [email protected] 78 points 4 days ago

I think you got an e-mail.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Aren't we all satin bowerbirds at heart? Gotta collect that blue.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Even android stopped supporting shaped icons to feel like apple where you only have stupid rounded squares. Thank you overlord google for plain boring corporatism when you could have chosen interesting thing you already did

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Even android stopped supporting shaped icons to feel like apple where you only have stupid rounded squares. Thank you overlord google for plain boring corporatism when you could have chosen interesting thing you already did

Android didn't stop anything. You're phone's launcher did. Try a third party launcher today!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

You blue yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago

All these go hard as fuck

[–] [email protected] 53 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 days ago

they have personality, character, and charm

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Because they aren't minimalistic and "safe"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

So much better than the boring “corporate Memphis” art style pretty much every company adopted

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

I love it but I want to see the really over the top late 80s stuff!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

It's what the yout's think the 80's looked like.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

Needed more rolling shutter and film grain. Also sepia tone.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 days ago

the symbols on the spotify and youtube logos are my favourite, i miss that kinda thing and especially how they'd be embossed on products, like the logo on sony ericsson phones.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago

Man, a lot of those are really excellent designs

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would.

Thanks for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago

Needs more serifs.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Question on things like this. Do we only prefer these because of true nostalgia, or because everything truly is worse now? I am unsure how one can have nostalgia for a time before they were even alive, but that seems to be a strong sentiment among many young people I've talked to. I know my most enjoyable days are turning off my phone and watching vhs tapes and playing ps1/atari. I truly think those times were far better than now.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (5 children)

I lived in that era. Things were slower and simpler in many ways, and brands had more personality. They weren't all so samey and companies weren't so big and faceless that they were completely immune to repercussions.

Home computers were mostly expensive toys that lived in designated spots in your home that you visited occasionally, not omnipresent passengers that were always with you, tracking your movements and constantly jabbing at you for attention.

Most things were written with pencil and paper. Businesses used typewriters. When you called a company you got a human being who lived in your country who could take time to actually help you with your problem. Store staff were knowledgeable about the products they sold, particularly places like Radio Shack.

People talked in the checkout line and at the register. Grocery stores devoted half an aisle to magazines and newspapers, and people actually had the time to read them. Nobody assumed a father with his crying kid in public was a predator who kidnapped a child. Taxi drivers knew the fastest way to get anywhere by memory.

There were fireflies in the evenings in the country, and there was more country. There were moths and butterflies and so many bugs in the summer that your windshield needed cleaning at every gas stop. People wanted to save the whales and stop the hole in the ozone and prevent acid rain, and through cooperation and legislation we actually did two of those things...

Later in the decade, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was making overtures of peace, when computers became actually useful and the Internet first came to homes, when there was international cooperation in space, we were all really filled with a degree of optimism for the future that seems so pure in hindsight.

Not everything was great. Domestic cars were awful. Gays had to hide because coming out of the closet would destroy your life. There was lots of sexism and misogyny in the workplace. Reagan was president and he really ruined many things that never recovered. TV shows were mostly terrible.

But I'd happily go back and re-live those years. And probably invest heavily in Apple and Microsoft. And maybe accidentally run over a real estate developer in Manhattan while he was crossing the street.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

In short, capitalism was less capitalistic then.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

TV shows were mostly terrible.

Ummm....excuse me?! You had me until that point. Then you lost me.

Modern TVs fascination with having a whole "season long" episode that requires viewing all in a row is not better.

I would rather, and usually do, select a random episode of TNG, Quantum Leap, A-Team, Simon and Simon, X-Files, etc... where they have an hour long adventure, then have a new one the next week. You don't need to worry about binge watching to "catch up"; just any random episode is a self contained story that you can enjoy and then get out. And sometimes the occasional two-parter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Watching x-files atm, I started last year in November and I'm still only on season 9. Amazing show

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"Mostly." :-)

You're talking to someone who owns all of those on Blu-ray and eagerly watched all of them each week back in the day (except Simon & Simon). And I could easily nominate probably 10 more off the top of my head.

In fact, I'm currently doing a full series rewatch of Quantum Leap. Nearly done.

But you've got to admit that for every excellent show there were a dozen terrible ones that are utterly forgettable. The bar is on average higher these days. Or rather, it was maybe a decade ago.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I would genuinely love to have stickers or tees of any one of those

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

A distressed ringer tee of any of these would give the perfect "thrift store find" vibes

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

never realized that discord's logo is supposed to be a console controller

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