Retro Rainbow Tutorials and Design Showcase
Although often used in the wrong context, the motif of ’70s Retro Rainbow designs seems to occur in many modern designs – from products designs to posters and web designs. The rainbow colors are particularly eye-catching and lively; they may provide the design with a dynamics and help to vividly convey the message of the graphic work. In past few months I came across to many artworks and new concepts of retro designs which gave me a thought to gather few for this inspirational post.
Below you’ll find a showcase of beautiful Retro Rainbow designs and resources. They range from popular Flickr photos to unconventional sources of inspiration, from helpful tutorials to useful related tools. Share your favorite sources of inspiration in the comments.
You may want to consider browsing through the following related posts:
- Retro and Vintage in Modern Web Design
- Celebration Of Vintage and Retro Design
- 35 Beautiful Vintage and Retro Photoshop Tutorials
- Vintage and Retro Typography Showcase
Retro Rainbow Tutorials
Retro Radio Station Advertisement Tutorial
Trendy Geometric Lines Design Tutorial
How to Create a Colorful Retro Style TV
3D Pixel Stretch Effects in Photoshop
3D Retro Strip Design – Design Tutorial 20
Create a Colourful Abstract Wavy Ribbon
Retro Rainbow Free Vectors and Brushes
The Most Retro Line Illustrator Brushes Ever!
105 Stunning Retro Tech-Shaped Illustrator Brushes
Retro Rainbow Creative Inspiration
by mamjed
by Lovevla
by jon_mutch
by majamom
by deszin.de
by Anhstar
by kaneda99
by grungetv
by notdemon
by mr whiZard
by Darni
by sternz
by s i a
by jmgarrido
by kipishiux
by seventhfury
by Laachi
by estheticcore
by martlucassen
by pure_arts
by rikku813
by W0Ah 0h
by Matthew Dear
by billybarker
by cloud-design
Retro Rainbow Related Blog Posts
50 Mind-blowing Retro-style Photoshop Illustrations
Vailancio
April 19th, 2009 5:33 amGreat! Very useful
Atiq
April 19th, 2009 5:39 amWOW! I like 5 design and I download to do myself !
Thanks
Atiq
Simran
April 19th, 2009 5:42 amGreat list and really useful for designers :)
Regards
Martin Ansty
April 19th, 2009 5:49 amThe link on the very first item links to the wrong page (the link text/caption is also wrong, there’s no 3d pixel stretching going on there)
(SM) Thank you for the correction, the link was updated.
Derek McDonald
April 19th, 2009 6:06 amLooks like a good collection there. I might have to give a few of them a go.
Lukas Berns
April 19th, 2009 6:13 amWow, this is great.
I might use this techniques for our new school logo design.
Thanks SM
Eli
April 19th, 2009 7:11 amThrilled to see my tutorial at the top of the roundup :P Very nice collection!
misterfaster
April 19th, 2009 7:18 amthats a nice list! :)
Henrík
April 19th, 2009 7:18 amthe colorburned links are wrong also, but great collection!
(SM) Thanks, the links are fixed now.
AYANO
April 19th, 2009 7:21 amA lot of 2007/2008 trends but some nice tutorials indeed.
Jeff
April 19th, 2009 8:36 amFourth to the bottom with the tree, by Whoa Oh, isn’t by him – he just has it on his flicker. He even says its not his but he doesn’t know who to give credit to.
Looks like JP33 to me. He should be included anyway, his stuff uses a lot of rainbows and is better than everything I see here.
I do like the stuff by FalkPhotoDesign though.
Andreas
April 19th, 2009 8:56 amThanks a bunch. Some of them are pretty amazing.
Luis Eduardo
April 19th, 2009 1:21 pmThis is a great post for inspiration and tutorials, you can use in soo many ways…..
Thanks
Ivan
April 19th, 2009 3:14 pmReally nice designs, its hard to find vintage stuff like this ^_^
Brennan
April 19th, 2009 3:19 pmi made something with rainbows and corel, if anyone’s not rainbowed out http://runningonsentences.deviantart.com/art/In-Joy-116547020
Jason
April 19th, 2009 4:58 pmGreat collection, what about… http://dotau.deviantart.com/art/Clouds-of-Colour-49596643
JOhn Davis
April 19th, 2009 5:17 pmWow, that is like WAY cool dude, I like it.
RT
mamjed
April 19th, 2009 5:17 pmThanks for the feature SM!
elesefe
April 19th, 2009 5:37 pmthis guy make beautiful retro-futuristic art ISO50
Vlad Gerasimov
April 19th, 2009 7:38 pmHey! Great link but you forgot my rainbow Photoshop tutorial:
http://www.vladstudio.com/photoshoptutorials/tutorial.php?rainbows_making_of
:-) Thanks!
Melody
April 19th, 2009 7:38 pmRetro art always has a tendency to come back in some form..but now technology can create such beautifully detailed works..
Najeeb
April 19th, 2009 8:50 pmWOW!
This is a very useful list for designers. A great round of applause for writer of the article. I must say, Smashing Magazine has always been on the top for providing such an informative articles.
Thomas Strobl
April 19th, 2009 9:09 pmto be honest there were some examples that arent up to a SmashingMag-level. I expected a little higher quality. Nevertheless thanks for the work, its a pretty big list.
OverZero.it
April 19th, 2009 11:33 pmNice! Very nice!
Thank you.
kanchan
April 19th, 2009 11:59 pmThis is really useful for web and graphics designers. Thanks for providing such inspiration.
Robert (InToGraphics @ the forum)
April 20th, 2009 12:08 am“Me as my own Superstar”
It looks like a rainbow afro, and is super cool.
Thanks,
Robert
Danish Refai
April 20th, 2009 1:02 amThat is without the doubt the best i’ve seeen !
Love it !
Alex
April 20th, 2009 1:49 amPerfect timing. My latest brief is to produce a rainbow inspired page/microsite for one of my clients! Good work!
Steve
April 20th, 2009 1:53 amGood article but I echo that this list should have referenced ISO50. Scott Hansen’s work is amazing!
Marek
April 20th, 2009 2:58 amI`m I right or are those images lazy loaded?
I don`t think it`s good idea, supposing web developers haven`t got limitated internet connection or cache capacity.
I hate loading!
But the article is as usual very good :)
Vincent
April 20th, 2009 3:22 amSweet!
Martin Ansty
April 20th, 2009 3:50 am@Jeff
You were correct, it is indeed by JP33: JP33.com
A correction is in order i think
Christine Cerniglia
April 20th, 2009 6:19 amHey thanks for the feature :)
mpc
April 20th, 2009 7:04 amawesome, thank you very much, You have done it again smashing magazine! :)
John Brown
April 20th, 2009 10:31 amGreat! Very useful
@Eleart
April 20th, 2009 11:57 amBeautiful collection, some of them are quite impressive!
Chris
April 20th, 2009 2:43 pmGreat and useful post. Although I’m annoyed to find that Adobetutorialz didn’t bother to do research on the car they used before naming their tutorial. I think it’s important for all of us designers to do this before we try and publish any work we do. You don’t want to loose credibility of a designer simply for not taking the time to do a little research. That car is not a Ford Mustang. It’s a 1954 Chevy Bel Air. Sorry to be anal but just my opinion. =) Great tutorial though.
re: Retro Lighting – Ford Mustang tutorial
Brian Temecula
April 20th, 2009 9:01 pmI’m anti-rainbow, so I found no interest in this article.
ActiveBox
April 20th, 2009 10:52 pmNice design bro, i think i should looks more design from you, very amazing…
srdha
April 21st, 2009 2:48 amjust want so say some thing “great job”
John McMullen
April 21st, 2009 4:20 am@ Chris : I’m right there with you, was actually just coming to post that. Being a Mustang enthusiast I was disappointed he put Mustangs with rainbows anyways, but to find that it wasn’t even a Mustang? The twerp.
Monty
April 21st, 2009 9:21 pm@ Thomas Strobl: I would say may be some designs may not inspire me but it doesn’t mean that they are sub standard. Each design has something for someone.
Nice post, cheers!
Pradeep CD
April 22nd, 2009 12:54 amsuperb list…
francesco poroli
April 22nd, 2009 8:47 amthanks for inclunding me in this list….
cheers :-)
francesco
Ghulam Abbas Khatri
April 23rd, 2009 2:22 amgreat Akhtar Sheikha… great ..love it..
Joe Clay
May 4th, 2009 5:58 am@Chris: You beat me to it, even to the year! Being a Mustang owner and having modeled a ’54 Bel Air in Lightwave, I thought I was supremely positioned to make that comment!
Cathedral Graphic Design
May 4th, 2009 10:55 am@ Everybody who commented about the Mustang…
What kind of American is it anyway who doesn’t even know what a classic Mustang looks like? And does the Bel Air really look like a classic muscle? hehe
At any rate, it was a great post, I like rainbows in general quite a bit and some of these were very well made! Mr Whizard, etc, great work.
Moonshine Design was a little cheezy though, the ugly 350Z marred it… good illustration + uninteresting photography of a low-trim-line roadster doesn’t match.
Darni
May 20th, 2009 9:58 amI’m honored that you chose to list my image among so many greats. Thanks!
purab
July 3rd, 2009 4:20 amall of them rocks.
satyajeet prasad
June 23rd, 2010 3:14 amNice design. i think i should looks more design from you, very Good……………..