FUTURE NOSTALGIA

3D World gathers artists and experts to discuss the rise of the synthwave aesthetic and how you can create your own neon masterpieces.

- Adrian Rojas(Dante Vinci)

Also known as outrun and retrowave, synthwave is first and foremost a style of electronic music, heavily indebted to the electro-synth sounds of the 1980s. As the genre rose to prominence throughout the 2000s, achieving more mainstream success in the 2010s with cultural touchstones like Drive and Stranger Things, it became associated with a particular visual style.

This visual style is similarly indebted to the 1980s, with purple and magenta neon, chrome, gridlines, and VHS effects, to name just a few of its recognisable tropes. It’s a style familiar to any artist working today and after more than a decade, its popularity doesn’t appear to be fading. 3D World felt the time was right to get the inside track on this popular style. Where did it come from? What is its lasting appeal? How can 3D artists create their own neon-soaked vistas? We have assembled the experts to answer all these questions and more.

A RETRO SOUNDTRACK

There are few individuals more qualified to help 3D World understand the synthwave movement and its visual stylings than Ashley Keegan. Also known as Synthronicity, Keegan is the owner and creative director of Forged In Neon, an online platform for all things synthwave, as well as A&R for London-based independent record label TW1 Records. These days she is held in high esteem by a roster of synthwave’s best and brightest musicians.

An early infatuation with television shows like Miami Vice, Knight Rider and Airwolf, along with their quintessentially 80s soundtracks, began Keegan’s obsession with synthwave. “I always had an innate love for the synthesiser as far back as I can remember,” she tells