How to Create A Vintage Website With WordPress
WordPress themes come in many forms and styles. And one of the most popular trends in WordPress theme designs these days is vintage and retro design style.
Even though this trend has been around in the web design industry for a long time, it’s still new to WordPress users. Thankfully, we are now starting to see more and more WordPress themes adopting this elegant design style.
If you’re planning on creating a new WordPress website or a blog with a sophisticated design unlike any other, then it’s worth looking into the vintage design trend.
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What Is Vintage Design?
The word vintage dates back to the 15th century. Originally it was used in reference to winemaking. Somehow the word evolved into describing things that look old and high quality. It’s also often referred to as “retro” (short version of the word retrospective), which also means “previous styles” or the styles used back in the day.
When it comes to the use of vintage style in modern design, it usually means making the design look like something from the early 1950s or from the 1980s. The process is done by the use of appropriate color, illustrations, and usage of typography design that was commonly used during such periods.
The vintage design trend is quite popular these days in web design industry. It helps designers add an elegant look to the website design while giving the end users a feeling of nostalgia.
What Type Of Websites Use It?
While the vintage design style is not suitable for all types of websites, it’s now widely used by many creative agencies, online stores, blogs, professional portfolios, and many other types of websites.
The vintage style often fits in and adds value to many types of website designs in different industries, unless you’re designing a website for a hospital, a real-estate business, or a sports related industry.
Although, not all web designers can handle this type of a website design. It takes special skills to know the right colors, layouts, and styles used in vintage design to craft the perfect vintage website.
But, if you’re building your website with WordPress, you’re in luck because you can simply use a pre-designed theme with a vintage style instead.
How To Recognize A Vintage Theme
Vintage WordPress themes have a unique style of their own. There are also themes that perfectly mix modern design with vintage styles as well. The good news is it’s not too difficult to find vintage themes in WordPress theme marketplaces. The bad news is most of them don’t really fit into the vintage design category. But, don’t worry, we’re here to help fix that.
Here are a few tips you should keep in mind when looking for one of the best vintage WordPress themes.
1. The Use Of Vintage Colors
Color plays an important role in any type of a design. Especially when it comes to website design, the colors you use will determine how the users will react or respond to the content and offer on your website.
Vintage website designs are known to have very soothing and washed down colors that are easier on the eyes. Usually, the colors used in vintage website designs are similar to the colors of old movie posters, vinyl, and newspapers from the 80s. When properly implemented, these colors add a classic look to any design.
When you’re looking for a vintage WordPress theme, the first thing you should do to see if it’s truly a vintage design is to check its use of color. When you see it, you’ll be able to tell the difference right away.
2. Old-School Typography
Typography is another key aspect that’ll help you identify a great vintage WordPress theme. If you’ve ever seen an old newspaper or a magazine from the 80s, it’ll be easier to recognize how a vintage font may look like. They take the form of handwriting fonts or script fonts.
Especially the fonts used for headlines and titles should always represent the vintage style to give the overall website design a truly vintage look. The big bold typography will certainly help you quickly attract the attention of your audience.
Of course, most WordPress themes allows you to customize the font with your own choice. So, finding a theme that supports a vintage font shouldn’t be a problem.
3. Retro Icons and Illustrations
Modern icons won’t fit in well with a vintage design. A true vintage WordPress theme will have its own unique set of icons for the design. This is another aspect that separated vintage designs from the rest.
Many vintage themes will also feature a lot of illustrations and graphics that represent the design style from the 50s to the 80s. Like old comic photos, posters, torn and rough textures, and faded backgrounds.
While you can also add these extra elements to the theme by yourself, it would make the process much easier if you could find a theme that comes pre-built with such vintage elements.
4. A Mix Of Modern Design
When talking about vintage website designs, most people immediately think of a website that looks like this:
The truth is that you can take vintage design a bit too far. It’s important to mix it with other more modern elements as well. In fact, vintage design has evolved on its own and now modern web designers use a mix of modern design standards and a bit of vintage style to make the design more appealing to the end users.
The result looks something like this:
As you can see, vintage doesn’t always mean old. Sometimes, it also means high-quality and elegance as well. It’s about thinking outside the box and trying out unique ways to make your website stand out.
Conclusion
Vintage design is a look that never goes out of style. The trend itself is growing popular by the day and more websites are starting to adopt and experiment with it.
If you still haven’t found the right vintage theme for your website, start your search with our handpicked collection of vintage WordPress themes.