Remembering a moment shared in the past becomes a warm hug in the present. Only the kids born after ’00 might not know Y2K properly; the rest of everyone born before; understand what it means to wear funky clothes with multiple colors and chew bubblegum and keep a diary and listen to Britney Spears. Such is the appeal of Y2K aesthetics.
The Y2K aesthetic prevailed from the late 90s to the early 00s. It comprised futuristic designs, funky fur, plastic clothes, cyber-inspired movies, synthetic music tunes, etc. If you see lots of bling, pastel colors, metallic, and Orkut/MySpace, know that you are looking at Y2K aesthetics. All throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s, one could see a few changes in web designing here and there.
But the year ’00 brought a significant design revolution. Suddenly, web designers were loaded with the double responsibility of creating designs that looked good on billboards as well as on iPhones. Thus, the designs of the 00s were not just catchy but functional too.
Cut to 2023, the web designers and brands want to give people the feeling of nostalgia and make them emotionally connected to the brand. They are bringing back the 2000s with featured 3-dimensional shapes and designs, monochrome green tint with crunchy black, and other Y2K elements. However, it is a considerable risk to carry out the project because if it goes south, there is no coming back from there.
And that is why the companies have all the more reasons to hire a professional website designing agency. Thus, below mentioned are some of the Y2K aesthetic elements which will make the website look vintage and attract the users immediately:
Loud Color
Don’t be subtle about your brand. You don’t need grey shades and brown and blue. Go wild with bright oranges and bubblegum pink and lime and icy blue. Loud colors sue to stand out and catch the attention of people. While you might not cover the whole website with such color; otherwise, people will close the website off as they won’t be able to look at it. But adding a little funk is good.
You can also go for metallic color themes and white holographic ones, which have a little bit of pink, blue, and orange hues. Immerse the brand into Y2K colors, and don’t shy away from experimenting a little.
Social Media Templates
The social media templates of Y2K look like lots of white with hot pink or yellows and greens. And make the posts uniform so that the feed looks good. Most people might not browse through each post but will have a look at the Instagram feed and choose to follow you. Thus, use the Y2K aesthetic to your advantage and make every color& every font count.
Adding a little bling in the background will give a retro look that is very 2000s and will add the jazz that is missing from the posts of brands that do not experiment much and take enough risk.
Bubbles and Blob
Watery shapes were one of the highlights of the 2000s, whether it is in flat or in 3D. Designers these days use it in the background to give the feel of water droplets so as not to make it boring. The child in the adult shouldn’t feel like they are caroling through a bland website, primarily if the brand provides designing services – IT or Fashion or Interior or Architectural.
The website is an online representation of the knowledge of the brand, and if they are unable to showcase their talent on their website, how will they be able to carry out creative projects for their clients?
Faces
It might sound tacky to put a face on the website, which makes it look a little unprofessional, but it is one of the Y2K elements which have gained popularity lately. And on the top of that big head are even catchier than the usual faces.If you take Steve Madden Big Head Ads for example, they are famous for Big Head Ads.
Steve Madden is just one example that teaches how to use faces creatively on the website, and web designers are doing that. Glitch, Hologram, cyber spy faces, etc. are some of the elements that can liven up the website in a Y2K manner.
Y2K Music
Putting a song of ’00 in the website’s background is not unheard of. It is rare, but it is not impossible. Thus, to make the website nostalgic, putting up popular songs will not only increase user engagement but reduce the bounce rate as well. Imagine a user browsing through your website, and in the background, Britney is singing, “Oops! I did it again!”
Nothing can be more relatable to the people than Y2K music that will take them back to the 2000s era when clothes were funky, music was metallic, and lives were simple. And not just this, they will prefer coming to the website repeatedly like the classic movies. One can never get bored of them.
Iconography and Analogue UI Design
The Y2K iconography will just about add the touch of those thick-lined, 3D, simple font stickers, which will take users back to the year 2000. You can also keep these stickers for users to download so that they can use them for their social media posts and spread the good word about you. These are the stickers people used to stick in their diaries and now can do so with their social media posts.
On the other hand, analogue UI design includes asymmetrical designs with a flat user interface, which reminds the user that the 2000s was a simple era. For example, the home page of the website looks like a diary with stickers and pointers. And hyperlink to every image and text takes the user to the respective landing page. It gives off a Y2K vibe with a modern approach.
Conclusion:
Not that the web designers need to know, but accumulating all the elements and putting them in the design can ruin the look. A combination of one or two Y2K themes should be enough to make the design look attractive. It shall be enough to make people nostalgic and emotional and encourage them to act upon it.
However, do not go overboard because you must keep in mind GenZ as well and see if they can connect to the design. So, which one is your favorite Y2K element that will motivate you to take the risk and change the branding of your company? Let us know in the comments below, and our team will contact you to explain the process further.
