CUNY York College CT101 Vapor Wave Exhibition

Welcome to the CT101 Digital Storytelling Gallery of Vapor Wave Aesthetic.

CT101 is a Digital Storytelling course at CUNY York College.

Inspired by this blog post previously published by professor Michael Branson Smith we set off to explore and experiment the genre as a class. The intention was to run through a series of class tutorials and then go off independently to generate images. Vapor Wave is a vast and unique community! The musical aspect is huge, and the accompanying visuals are so attractive and contagious. The possibilities of how and where the aesthetic can be applied is even more expansive than we thought! You might ask yourself, why haven’t I heard of this before? Good question! It all seems to start with getting your feet wet with these two videos below, a little history really helps.

The image gallery above is an energetic series of our first static outcomes! These pieces above set a tone for what is possible, and how we can push ourselves further. CT101 students are new to many of the software applications used in the course. We learned and applied a ton of new skills with adobe photoshop to create the digital collage works. Importing files, creating graphic assets, working with layers and gradients are all a part of the process. Saving files and exporting various file formats for the web were also explored and tested.

I want to make some Vapor Wave Art too! (right?)

A great way to get started is by doing your own research and finding a tutorial that you can follow along with. I suggest these two below:

  1. Creating Vapor Wave – 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKokry41Ixg
  2. Creating Vapor Wave – 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ_ZT0Phfo4

The tutorials are great to work along with. But alas! What if you don’t have access to adobe photoshop? Is there an alternative? Indeed, you can use web browser applications like:

  1. Pixlr – https://pixlr.com/
  2. GIMP – https://www.gimp.org/
  3. Get Paint ( For PC users) https://www.getpaint.net/index.html

If you are looking for pre-made vapor wave elements, content and graphic assets you can easily grab a series of transparent images from doing a quick search that simply reads: “transparent vapor wave graphics“. The vapor wave community is proactive in sharing and uploading transparent graphics making it accessible and immediate for anyone to get involved.

Like what you see? Jump in and submit your work to the Vapor Wave gallery!

23 comments

  1. Caitlin Toro says:

    Great Gallery! Love the different creations. This gallery shows the different way people can create something. We all have different view points and each image shows that.

    I love the palm trees.

  2. Angelica says:

    There are endless of creative vapor waves. Each one is weirdly unique. Now that i see the rest of the vapor waves created, I don’t like the one I created. My favorite one is the one that looks like the beach and has a UFO.

  3. Venisha Henry says:

    I must say that I really enjoy the vaporwave that Selena Matos has created because she was able to create a still image that has the feeling of movement. The wave graphic in the background combined with the blurred image of the main character really allow for the feeling of movement.

  4. Kevin Ramales says:

    The process of creating VaporWave was stressful because I was not using photoshop. I used an app for the Mac called sketchbook and because I didn’t understand how to use it, trying to make anything was tedious. After I got the hang of it, I started experimenting and added laser beams to the bust eyes. Which I thought was really cool and it quickly became my favorite part of my VaporWave. I will attempt to create a piece with photoshop to see if it really helps.

  5. seeing other people’s work makes me feel like I could have worked on my piece a little better there are some great work posted here, and some other not so good but I understand the reason myself I had to struggle a lot to find the pictures and then put my idea together on how to make my vapor-wave unique or different from toher’s.
    Awesome work overall.

  6. Selena says:

    On Tuesday we learn how to put together a vaporwave theme picture by photoshopping. First we looked up “transparent vaporwave images”, we got to pick what we would like and saved a copy of it. Then we went to photoshop and made a vaporwave color theme background. We put our images on with layers but some didn’t come as transparent. So we had to use the magic wand tool to make the background of the image transparent. I put all my images that I wanted into one picture. My theme is the “internet” on how it was slow back then because vaporwave has a 90s color theme.

  7. Selena Matos says:

    Great gallery! Seeing everyones work together is very inspiring! Each piece is unique and has a lot of personality to it, I especially love the pieces that incorporate anime into it.. It really makes me want to create some more! This was my first time creating one myself, it was challenging but very fun trying a new aesthetic I’ve never explored before. I found myself listening to a lot more lofi and vaporwave after this assignment lol.

  8. I love all of these vapor waves there pretty cool! each images displays a story! the process of making a vapor wave was truly fun because we got to pic our own background bright colors an then the next were adding images to make them look really 3-D.

  9. Francesco Ferrer says:

    I really enjoyed creating a Vapor Wave image because I liked the color schemes and the images that were used. I really enjoyed the 80s/90s vibe that these images give off and and I might create some more at some point in the near future. I also like the way that all of the images in the gallery sort of fit together, but also are individual in their own right and are still separate images that were created by different people.

  10. Brittany Jagdharry says:

    This entire gallery looks amazing. All of the colors go so well together and they pop out. It was so much fun creating a vaporwave. You can tell that each individual added their own style to their piece and some pictures fit perfectly with each other. I’m glad I learned something new!

  11. Brittany Jagdharry says:

    This gallery looks amazing. All of the colors go so well together and they pop out. Each individual incorporated their own style to their piece. I had a great time creating vaporwaves and I’m glad Iearned something new. Some vaporwaves actually tell a story which is really cool. Great job guys!

  12. Isabel Palacios says:

    Wow! The gallery looks amazing! Everyone did so well with the vaporwave aesthetic. All the creations are so eye-catching, it’s hard in itself to ignore the beautiful color schemes. I think this was definitely a really fun project for everyone, I personally loved doing vaporwave and enjoyed making my piece!

  13. Wow! The gallery looks amazing! Everyone did so well with the vaporwave aesthetic. All the creations are so eye-catching, it’s hard in itself to ignore the beautiful color schemes. I think this was definitely a really fun project for everyone, I personally loved doing vaporwave and enjoyed making my piece!

  14. Darshanand Dinaram says:

    The process of creating a Vapor Wave image with really fun because I got to be as creative as I want and it helped me get more practice on photoshop. I liked all the colors of this design and I’ve been creating more on my free time.

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