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:
- Creating Vapor Wave – 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKokry41Ixg
- 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:
- Pixlr – https://pixlr.com/
- GIMP – https://www.gimp.org/
- 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!
