{"id":54909,"date":"2020-05-12T12:32:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T19:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/?p=54909"},"modified":"2024-04-19T05:37:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T12:37:52","slug":"design-trend-report-space-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/design-trend-report-space-opera","title":{"rendered":"Design Trend Report: Space Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

The phrase “May the Fourth be with you†is something you’ve probably been hearing a lot this month. That’s because May 4 is the unofficial holiday of Star Wars<\/em> Day, celebrated far and wide by Star Wars<\/em><\/a> fans in galaxies far, far away. It’s also the perfect time to take a deeper look at space opera<\/strong>.\nIt’s a design movement with an aesthetic you won’t soon forget and usually includes themes related to heroism, adventurism, space warfare, throwbacks to medieval-style romance, and a general vibe of something epic taking place. With all these inspiring qualities, it’s no wonder that space opera is the<\/em> design trend on which the Star Wars<\/em> franchise<\/a> is built.\nSo the next time you hear someone declare, “May the Fourth be with you,†understand that this media franchise actually has deep roots in design aesthetics, which is what we’ll intrepidly explore right now.\n

<\/span>The History of Space Opera<\/span><\/h2>

\nThe cool thing about Star Wars<\/em> is that it’s far from being just a franchise that only science-fiction fans can get obsessed with; it’s also something that designers should<\/em> be able to appreciate. After all, the visual art in this film series is nothing short of mind-blowing in its creativity. And, yes, “May the Fourth be with you†is absolutely a takeoff on the Star Wars<\/em> catchphrase of “May the Force be with you.â€\nThe phrase “space opera†is a reference to a subgenre in science-fiction that puts the emphasis on action. It was coined back in 1941—when comic books and their badges<\/a> were growing in popularity—by American fan-fiction writer Wilson Tucker. Ironically, the phrase was meant as a pejorative by Tucker, who was talking about formulaic and hackneyed TV shows and westerns whose plots had simply been switched over to an outer-space setting<\/a>.\nAfter languishing as a genre for the next couple of decades, space opera was reimagined in the 1960s and 1970s and consequently enjoyed a slow-but-steady resurgence. First, it was the 1974 anthology of old-time science-fiction stories called, appropriately enough, Space Opera<\/em>, that made people look at this genre in a different light. Then, around the same time, the husband and wife team of Lester and Judy-Lynn del Ray—both science-fiction editors—revitalized the genre further, distancing it from the earlier connotations of unoriginal plots based on TV shows and westerns.\nProbably the biggest favor that was done to this genre was its association, however, with the Star Wars<\/em> franchise when, by the early 1980s, space opera was being used to describe the major motion pictures in the original Star Wars<\/em> trilogy (as well as other pop-culture works). It took until the 1990s for this design trend to actually gain status as an “official†genre of science-fiction.\nHere are a few of our favorite Star War<\/em>s-inspired digital assets to give you a better sense of how this design trend looks:

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<\/figure>\n \nWhile this brief history is very revealing, it doesn’t tell the whole story of space opera.\nBefore the phrase was coined, there were already numerous works in pop culture that featured the qualities of what would turn into this design movement.\nFor example:\n<\/p>