90s aesthetic: grunge, web 1.0 and pastel tech

The 90s aesthetic is not one style but four or five that ran side by side: grunge, with its faded olives and photocopied type; web 1.0, with pure screen blue and magenta on grey; pastel tech, the candy colours of translucent plastic gadgets; and rave, all acid yellow and smiley faces. Each has its own palette, texture and type. Pick one strand, borrow its colours exactly, and your design reads as 90s without looking like fancy dress.

Below are the strands one by one, each with a palette you can copy, followed by how to turn them into posts and backgrounds that still feel current.

The four strands of the 90s look

There was also a quiet minimal strand: black and white fashion photography, lots of empty space and thin sans serif type. It has aged so well that it rarely reads as 90s at all, which is useful if you want the mood without the costume.

90s grunge aesthetic palette

Grunge colour looks like it has been left in the sun and photocopied twice. Nothing is fully saturated and nothing is pure white. Think of flannel shirts, thrift shop cardigans and gig flyers stapled to a telegraph pole. The ground is usually a dirty off white or a near black, and the accents are muddy rather than bright.

Texture does as much work as colour here. Add heavy grain, a slightly uneven ground and type that looks stamped or typewritten. Grainy gradients explains how to add noise that looks like print rather than a filter.

Web 1.0 aesthetic: colours of the early internet

Early web pages used colours that screens could show reliably, which is why the palette is so blunt. Default link blue, visited purple, grey browser chrome and the occasional green on black for anything that wanted to look technical. The charm is in the honesty: hard edges, no gradients except the odd bevelled button, and tiled backgrounds behind everything.

To make it legible today, give the colours more room than the originals did. One magenta headline on grey reads as a knowing reference; six colours fighting on a starfield reads as a broken page. The same restraint applies to the later Y2K aesthetic, which grew directly out of this look.

Pastel tech: translucent plastic colours

Late in the decade, computers, phones and game handhelds arrived in see-through coloured plastic. Apple's 1998 iMac in Bondi Blue is the famous example, followed by fruit flavoured shades. The palette is bright but soft, as if lit from behind, and it sits best on white or a pale cool grey.

These work beautifully as single colour backgrounds with one line of rounded sans serif type. Pair the blue with tangerine for contrast, or keep each post to one flavour and let the grid become the rainbow.

Rave and club flyer colours

Club and rave flyers were printed cheaply, often in one or two fluorescent inks over black. Acid yellow, UV violet and hot pink were the staples, with halftone dots and wide techno lettering. The secret is limitation: one bright on black is louder than four. If neon is your direction, neon gradients shows how to keep it from turning muddy.

How to use a 90s aesthetic without it looking dated

1. 1

   Choose one strand

   Grunge for bands and vintage shops, web 1.0 for tech and newsletters, pastel tech for products and playful brands, rave for nights out.

2. 2

   Copy the palette, then cut it down

   Start from the hex codes above and keep three or four. A tight palette reads as intentional.

3. 3

   Put the period detail in one place

   A pixel font for one label, a halftone background, a bevelled button. One detail sells the decade.

4. 4

   Keep the words easy to read

   Set headlines large on the calmest part of the background. Retro fonts lists faces that carry the era and still read well.

If you want a 90s inspired background that nobody else is posting, Gradiently's Marks are a good starting point: living gradient and material backgrounds with grain and light built in, each one unique. Words placed on a Mark stay readable because the background calms itself behind them. For the wider family of throwback looks, see retro gradients and the 80s aesthetic.