Nostalgia for the nineties continues to infest the pop imagination. Maybe it’s because we’re eternal melancholy or because what we’re experiencing now is not as beautiful as the past. The fact remains, however, that every time we think about the ’90s, we are reminded of all the good times spent in the company of the Super Tele or other elements that have forever marked the story. Let’s face it, the first ten years of 2000 were not a big deal as they didn’t have the same cultural impact as the previous decade.

For this reason, to remember the past, the American graphic designer – originally from Vancouver – Aaron Campbell has created Vapor Dreams 97, a series of illustrations that represent the life of a teenager of the 90s.
Each drawing is inspired by the aesthetics of video games and the present culture of that period and, more generally, by the birth of the digital era.

The artist defines his work as an overly fictionalized vision of the 1990s. In Vapor Dreams 97 Aaron refers to various typical scenarios such as the classic bedroom of an American child with the giant televisions with the case behind them – which today are antiques -, the video games of car races for the Playstation, the Game Boy, the Tamagotchi, the Ninja Turtles, the posters of the most beloved films of that decade such as Pulp Fiction up to Commodore 64 and Window 95.

To develop the project, the artist has carried out a great iconographic and stylistic research in order to create illustrations that in all respects could be similar to those years. The details inserted, such as the colors, LEDs, and fonts, contribute even more to making the work totally truthful and beautiful.