Applied Nostalgia: That 1980s Look

In my previous post I looked at how to achieve a 1970s mood visually.  This time I'm looking at the 1980s.

The first thing to note is that I'm deliberately avoiding iconography -- so no Rubik's Cubes, New Romantic pop posters or asymmetric hairstyles.  Instead I'm trying to suggest the period by use of colour, decoration and lighting; to provide a context for other items.

I'll start by looking at others who have tried to conjure that period visually in pastiche.  (This gives a quick route to identifying the common signifiers, and saves re-inventing the wheel).

First up is the 2008 TV series Ashes to Ashes, in which detective Alexandra Drake was transported back through time into a stylised world of policing based on shows like The Gentle Touch, The Professionals and Dempsey & Makepeace.

See the programme intro here.

Next is the cult phenomenon Garth Merenghi's Darkplace.  This series captures many of the stylings associated with cheap VHS horror movies.

Clip here.

This even continues to the DVD cover which does a cracking job of capturing the "airbrushed glow" look of posters from this era.

Talking of VHS (and on a general graphic design theme) next on my list is Justice's DVNO music video (2007), produced by the Machine Molle animation & VFX company.  This video takes song lyrics turned into the kind of animated logos associated with companies like HBO, CBS Fox and Cannon Films during the 1980s.

Analysis

To achieve a 1980s look, a number of factors need to be included:

Signifier:	Black
Why?	In the 1980s, black was the new brown.  Film & video from this period is generally better preserved than 1970s stock, so the blacks are also a lot darker.  There is heavy use of darkness and night-time as background (as opposed to the sunny look of the 70s).

There were quite a few movies & TV shows in the 1970s with night-time scenes, but this seemed to become the prevalent look in the early 1980s.

Night-time scenes became more common in the 1980s,
as demonstrated in this still from Joe Jackson's Steppin' Out music video

Signifier:	80-85: Undersaturated colours (especially reds & blues); gold; black & white in contrast; 85-90: Pastel shades, overlit.
Why?	The 1980s palette is much wider than the previous decade; although primary colours are evident they are not vivid.  This may be due to degradation of video tape (on which many programmes were shot, to save money).

Here's a couple of examples of this in action:

Gary Numan, performing his Telekon album live.
Note the muted red in contrast to the black.

Larry Blackmon from the band Cameo in 1986, with  trademark red codpiece.
Note the pastel shades (behind) starting to come in.

The image below is from the 2005 Doctor Who episode Father's Day, which portrayed a wedding in the late 1980s.  Although the general filming style of the episode fails to capture that period look, the make-up, hair and clothes do a good job of following the pastel colour scheme associated with the latter half of the decade.

Signifier:	Stripes!  Stripes!  Stripes!
Why?	In clothing, coloured stripes were fashionable, usually in contrast to black or white.

The image below shows a number of elements in combination: red-and-black striped leotard (note the muted red); and black leg-warmers and footless tights.

This also extended to lighting: with the emphasis on darkness, scenes are often lit by light coming through blinds or bars.

The "lit through blinds" technique just screams '80s
in this scene from Blade Runner.

Signifier:	Glow
Why?	Although airbrushed artwork had been around during the 1970s, the effect started to move into video work in the following decade.  Cartoons like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe featured glowing magic

Cartoons like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe featured incandescent elements as a matter of course, and most logos were not complete without an edge glow.

Next time we'll be looking at the difficult-to-pin-down 1990s.