Nostalgic Design: Vintage Illustrations Meet Modern Hardware

Before I jump right in, let me share a few alternative titles I considered 😜 - let me know which one piqued your interest the most!

• I Can’t Stop Stealing: This Vintage Artwork is TOO Good

• You Won’t Believe Where I Found These Illustrations

• This FINALLY Entered the Public Domain - I’m Using It!

The #dailyconstellation series of posts is now entering week 4! I’ve shared a few of these via Substack, but they’re all posted daily on YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and BlueSky.

👉 Please like, share, and forward to your star-gazing friends!

The #dailyconstellation series will continue until I’ve completed ALL 88 IAU Constellations!

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Illustrations! It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, but I have a good excuse. Here in the PNW we have something called “Mid-Winter Break”. Not Spring Break, (we have that too) but Mid-Winter Break. See, it’s gray here for a very long stretch, and this break gives kids (and parents) a chance to chase some sunshine, or at least divert our attention for a week. In my family’s case, we just changed the backdrop of gray and made our way down the Oregon coast. Our kind of break ;)

Back to the illustrations - gah, I keep getting sidetracked! Since the very beginning of the CONSTELLATIONS project, I’ve planned to bring illustrations to the night sky. Most astronomy apps have their version of this feature - look up, see an illustration of a bull projected on top of the constellation Taurus, you get the idea.

The design of these illustrations is important. It contributes to the tone of the experience and becomes a core element of the brand.

I’m not adding this feature as a differentiator, I’m adding it because I think it’s an important part of the overall experience:

Illustrations help us understand the name of the constellation and reinforce the pattern the stars are imagined to portray. Sometimes the concept is pretty obvious, other times it’s a BIG STRETCH of the imagination.

I’ve always been drawn to the vintage illustrations found in early books or newspapers. These were often created using wood engraving techniques where the artist(s) would carve an image in reverse into a block of wood, cutting away the negative space so the raised surfaces held ink.

Printing with this technique results in prints that are not “digitally perfect”. Over time, a series of micro-changes make each print unique and a bit unpredictable - the stamp can wear or change with use, the ink builds, dries, clots, slowly evolving.

My search for “constellation illustrations” ultimately led me to Star Lore of All Ages, by William Tyler Olcott. This book was published in 1911 and is now in the public domain. I feel lucky to have found it after many unproductive searches.

Not only do the illustrations match the esthetic I had in mind, the language of the book itself is old enough that it evokes a spirit of the past, of going back in time to look further back in time.

Consider the opening passage:

The origin of the constellations is still open to conjecture, for, though all nations since the dawn of history have recognised these ancient stellar configurations, and at one period or another employed them in some symbolic or representative capacity, the fact remains that the researches of archaeologists have failed to yield definite proof as to who first designed them and where they were first known.

Isn’t that language beautiful? It immediately sets the stage for reflection, of considering a time before now.

Scaling and rotating these illustrations into place is a manual process, and the images don’t necessarily map “perfectly” to the real stars - that’s part of the charm (to my eye at least).

Each illustration in the book is accompanied by a drawing of the representative stars and connecting points. Significant stars are labeled as well. Both are useful references when positioning the artwork.

Here’s a side-by-side that shows the in-book illustration of Cancer - “The Crab” and a screen shot from CONSTELLATIONS: Touch the Stars with the illustration in place.

When enabled on the main menu, the illustrations fade into view as you shift your gaze, just like the labels do currently.

Here, Monoceros - “The Unicorn” comes into view next to Canis Minor - “The Lesser Dog”. The unicorn illustration reminds me of carousel horses at an amusement park, legs outstretched, leaping across the sky!

And here are the in-game photos on their own:

The Star Lore of All Ages book only contains 43 illustrations, which represents almost half of the illustrations needed. Once this initial set of illustrations is positioned in the sky, the remaining illustrations have to be created. I’m debating whether to publish incremental updates that release the illustrations in batches or wait until they’re all complete. (Join the Discord and let me know what you think!)

Please share this newsletter with your star-gazing friends and check out CONSTELLATIONS: Touch the Stars in Early Access - now in the Meta Store!

If you have feature ideas, please send them my way!

Until next time,

Grant