Vintage design

When speaking of Vintage design we often refer to an item like, furniture, jewelry or ceramics from another era that have a recognizable value. The popularity for vintage design have skyrocketed over the last ten years or so. Moreover there is often a lot of different subcategories for vintage design.

Noma Nordic specializes in a variation of products from the Scandinavian midcentury.

How do you identify what vintage design actually is?

When people often gets asked about what vintage design is, most would refer to it as something that looks “old”. However when you and where you were born will effect your perspective. We at Noma Nordic would argue that there are three factors that must be met for something to be of vintage design.


1. The Visual Style that creates the vintage design look

Styles more often than not follows some sorts of trends. Which speaks for the visual style of the given era. For instance, even though you might not have lived through a particular decade, such as the 1920s, you’ll still be able to recognize if something references the era by picking up on visual clues.


2. Ageing is a part of vintage design

The second factor which helps you identify a ‘vintage’ design style is perception of age. Like almost everything gets effected by age and time has an influence on how things appear depending on how old they are. For instance most people would probably be able to guess that a modern digital print are printed recently. You might guess the age of a print with slightly more pixilation and a duller color as being of the 1950s or 1960s. A print with yellowing, curled or ripped edges, and serious signs of damage or decay looks even older—possibly 19th or early 20th Century.

When companies try to recreate the feeling of vintage design, the more often than not try to replicate the look of these ageing processes to make it appear more authentic.


3. Nostalgia

Nostalgia are a very powerful feeling if you manage to tap in to it. What gives you that nostalgic feeling will be different for every person, because if you were born in the 70s the 80s, might give you more nostalgia than the 90s, where someone that was born in the 80s would argue that the 90s have more nostalgic elements to it.

Many contemporary brands have realised the power of tapping into nostalgic marketing for their products. However every product we at Noma Nordic sells are authentic and original from its era.

If you have any questions or inquires please feel free to contact us. You can reach us at either noma@nomanordic.com or +46 (0)70 389 86 84 from 12 am to 5pm CET, Monday to Friday.