{"id":51883,"date":"2019-05-13T08:51:40","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T15:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/?p=51883"},"modified":"2024-04-18T03:50:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T10:50:03","slug":"trend-report-atomic-age-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/trend-report-atomic-age-design","title":{"rendered":"Trend Report: Atomic Age Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you hear the phrase “Atomic Age†bandied about, your mind naturally drifts to power and space. Atomic Age design<\/strong> is a highly imaginative movement that plays on these themes of nuclear energy, atomic science, and space exploration.\nCoinciding with the start of the Cold War back in the 1940s, Atomic Age design looked to the future, full of speculation, wonder and, yes, fear about technology, space and the role of mankind in all of this. The end result was a visually inventive movement that combined elements of midcentury modern design<\/a> with some retro aspects, and couched all of that in terms of outer space<\/a> and the then-nascent Space Age.\nJoin us for a walkthrough of Atomic Age design in all its futuristic glory.\n

<\/span>The History of Atomic Age Design<\/span><\/h2>

\nTo understand this contribution to design, we have to travel back to a time in the world when geopolitics were very uncertain. We’re talking about the Cold War, those decades of tension between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, characterized by their arms race and proxy wars (regional, local conflicts around the world) that both countries supported.\nToday, we know how the Cold War ended—with the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states collapsing. However, at the start of and for much of this conflict, there was a very real fear in the U.S. and the west that nuclear war, with all of its destructive power, would break out on a global scale with the Soviets, thereby threatening life as people in the 20th<\/sup> century knew it.\n\"\"\n<\/p>

Image Credit: Wikipedia<\/a><\/h6>

\nAtomic Age design is the epitome of how an entire culture can take its worries and fears over the then-real threat of a nuclear showdown—and actually convert it into a design trend. Although the Cold War lasted from about 1946 to 1991 (with the fall of the Soviet Union), this design trend preceded it slightly, being in fashion from about 1940 to 1963.\nAt the core of this trend was also the series of advances that science was making during this time. While they represented great leaps forward for the human race, they also signaled potential doom due to the ease with which we could destroy ourselves.\nAtomic Age design coincided with:\n<\/p>