Featured image for The Dieline's 2018 Trend Report: Analog Is the New Vintage

The Dieline's 2018 Trend Report: Analog Is the New Vintage

by Natalie Mouradian on 02/27/2018 | 4 Minute Read

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It's new. It's old. It’s here to stay.

Vintage has been a long-running and highly effective design trend. For 2018, the new vintage is analog. Consumers crave an offline experience, so vintage design has started to evolve into analog. It no longer references a certain era or time period but looks specifically offline, non-digital, and IRL. Sign-painting techniques also dominate the analog trend, with slab serif and script fonts referencing subtle, hand-painted imperfections in their lines.  

“As the tides of technology rage on,” marketing and content strategist Katie Perry said earlier this year, "2017 saw several examples of people and businesses gravitating around purposefully non-digital aims. These included companies that, despite being rooted in technology, aspire to help people unplug and unwind (#meta). Calm, a meditation app, was named Apple’s App of the Year. Meanwhile, companies like Getaway and Hipcamp gained popularity by connecting people with nature. Brands are getting on board, too. Casper hosted a camping outing for its community during the solar eclipse, and this past fall, REI extended its #OptOutside campaign for a third straight year, urging people to enjoy nature instead of shopping on Black Friday.”


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Dollar Shave Club

With 3D style typography and bright colors emulating retro European lifestyle brands, Dollar Shave Club combines straight-forward messaging and a bold graphic language to create a simple yet impactful brand.

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Chobani

Chobani, America’s favorite fruit on the bottom yogurt, went through a major branding overhaul this year. Inspired by the folk art of the 19th century, their bright and vivid hand-drawn illustrations and friendly typeface stand out in a sea of uniform yogurt designs.

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Stumptown

Stumptown coffee has become a leader in the cold brew scene. But to stand out from the pack even further, Seattle design studio Column created a dramatic redesign for the entire Stumptown line that channels some serious 1970s vibes. Complete with a line of cold brew bottles designed in the nostalgic style of Red Stripe beer, Matt Fagerness of Column says their client “didn’t want it to look overtly like coffee or like an alcoholic beverage, but they wanted it to meet somewhere in the middle.”

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Stranger Things

What could be better than owning your own copy of Stranger Things on DVD? How about a copy that masquerades as a vintage VHS tape with this limited edition packaging design sold at Target. The faded packaging houses 4 discs inside a VHS-styled box that even sports the “Please Be Kind & Rewind” sticker.

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Maison Marou

Rice Creative designed a very Parisian brand identity for Maison Marou, a cafe, patisserie, and gourmet chocolate factory in Saigon, Vietnam. "Maison Marou requires an ever-changing range of packaging. A flexible system was developed to apply across a plethora of shapes and sizes. Fields of color are divided by a horizon line drawn behind the ‘Marou-mobile.’”

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Calm App

Apple's number 1 app for the year is Calm, a meditation-based experience that teaches mindfulness and breathing techniques to help customers cope with the stresses of modern life. The welcoming cursive font paired with a gentle blue gradient tells the user right away that this app was made to help you relax and unplug.

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Van Leeuwen

Artisanal Ice Cream brand Van Leeuwen recently got a new look courtesy of design juggernaut Pentagram Studios. The redesign was prompted by the increase in small batch ice cream companies, and owners Laura O’Neill and brothers Benjamin and Pete Van Leeuwen wanted to stand out from the crowd. Their new retro-modern style marries the brand’s two separate lines of classic and vegan whose styles previously felt unrelated to one another.