# Am I the only fan of 70's design? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 5, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474 "2012-08-05T01:37:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/21 "2012-08-06T15:30:09Z")
I was a child of the 70s and there’s no nostalgia lost here. Oh the orange. (WHY SO MUCH ORANGE?) Shag carpeting literally makes me feel a little sick, like…I’ve gotta get outta here! There is no way to keep that stuff clean. I’m normally not a germophoby person but I just look at shag and can almost hear the microbes multiplying. But really the public architecture was the worst in the design category…the general idea seemed to be “I like how you’ve made it so cheap but could you possibly make it a little uglier and more unwelcoming?” ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/22 "2012-08-06T16:36:13Z")
I was at Target looking at window curtains for the new place, and wondered WTF HAPPENED. The colours available were boring or orange or UGLY brown; the colours were straight from the 70’s Show. I’d been hoping to get something ‘not black’, as the room these were for already sucks up light, but ended up with navy. Nothing else wouldn’t have made me regret the purchase, yuck. ---
**Author:** ![oreally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ab992/32.png) [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/23 "2012-08-06T16:45:12Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Fashions are another thing, but the design for fixtures and appliances is amazing.’ > > I love those globe lights that seem to be universally hated.😕 I grew up in the 70s. You’re a sick puppy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/24 "2012-08-06T19:14:24Z")
> [@carlotta](#): > > Shag carpeting literally makes me feel a little sick, like…I’ve gotta get outta here! There is no way to keep that stuff clean. I’m normally not a germophoby person but I just look at shag and can almost hear the microbes multiplying. No kidding. Our shag carpetting came with the house and we never raked it or did anything apart from vacuum it. So it turned into “Wall-to-Wall Harvest Gold Dreadlocks” after a few years. We replaced it around 1980 with a short pile brown carpet. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/25 "2012-08-06T19:46:39Z")
I loved the cameras from then. Olympus OM-1, OM-2 Minolta XE-7, XD-11 Leica R-3, M4-2 Canon F-1, A-1 Nikon FE, FM, F2 Pentax MX, 67 Mamiya 645, RB67 Hasselblad 500 C/M Contax RTS Polaroid SX-70 Bronica ETR Rolleiflex SLX Topcon Super-D Konica TC There were so many! Also Vivitar Series 1 Lenses and 283 flash, E-6 slide processing, easy to use color printing papers and processes, an abundance of choices for anything B&W … I think I’m gonna get sick with nostalgia. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/26 "2012-08-06T19:53:29Z")
Before nitpicking that some of those were not 1970s designs (like the Hassy), the models I listed (like the 500C/M) were the 1970s versions. Cibachrome papers may have been introduced in the 60s, but the 70s saw a boom in home color darkrooms. Thyristor flashes predate popular Vivitar models, but the 283 is still a sought after unit. etc… ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/27 "2012-08-06T19:57:15Z")
Even the ad words for some of those products were cool hexaphotocybernetic ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/28 "2012-08-06T19:59:40Z")
Yes, I generally like 70s design. It was the tail end of mid-century modern. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/29 "2012-08-06T23:03:06Z")
> [@grude](#): > > [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/\_ux-452scvb4/TTuZSN4bVwI/AAAAAAAAE44/O5Zb2LpLiQs/s1600/apollo-70s-retro-living-room.jpg](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ux-452scvb4/TTuZSN4bVwI/AAAAAAAAE44/O5Zb2LpLiQs/s1600/apollo-70s-retro-living-room.jpg) > > I love that room! > > I wasn’t even born in the 70s. I was born in 68 and had a bed couch with almost exactly the same design as those walls as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/30 "2012-08-06T23:11:04Z")
the 70s took elements of 60s hippy and produced mellow. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/31 "2012-08-06T23:37:50Z")
The Jetsons style was more '60s than '70s, wasn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/32 "2012-08-06T23:51:36Z")
Rent “Soul Train” DVDs (from Netflix or whatever) for some tasty (so bad it’s good) 70s styles. Oh, yeah! And Jane and Michael Stern’s book _The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste_ has quite a few entries from that era. Again, it’s a fond, even reverent, homage. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/33 "2012-08-07T15:37:20Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > No kidding. Our shag carpetting came with the house and we never raked it or did anything apart from vacuum it. So it turned into “Wall-to-Wall Harvest Gold Dreadlocks” after a few years. We replaced it around 1980 with a short pile brown carpet. I rented a house in London only about 10 years ago, and my bedroom had navy-blue shag-pile carpet in it so deep you could lose a badger in it (and previous tenants may well have done so). Anyway, the 1970s. What was it with green, brown and orange in that decade? That’s a serious question. Had new and exciting dyes of those hues just been invented? I look at pictures from my childhood in the late 1970s and it’s astounding: black carpet with orange and yellow swirls, an avocado green wall, orangey-brown wooden arm-chairs upholstered with bright orange fabric… It must have been like living at the bottom of a bucket of vomit. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/34 "2012-08-07T16:09:28Z")
Just read some more posts, and now I have PTSD, thanks a ton! I’m having flashbacks from all the polyester 3-piece pantsuits that my mom sewed for me. In orange. And brown. And yellow. And avocado. /rocks in the corner, sobbing quietly ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/35 "2012-08-07T16:46:29Z")
The greens, browns, tans, I could blame on the Earth Movement type stuff. Back to nature, live off the land, love Mother Nature, etc… As for the orange? Maybe that comet that hit on the East coast that one summer brought with it some strange, oily, teased hair, orangey life forms with it? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/36 "2012-08-07T17:02:09Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > The greens, browns, tans, I could blame on the Earth Movement type stuff. Back to nature, live off the land, love Mother Nature, etc… But none of them were “natural-looking” greens and browns. They were acidic, chemical-spill colours only ever seen in Formica, melamine and polyester. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/37 "2012-08-07T17:22:50Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > But none of them were “natural-looking” greens and browns. They were acidic, chemical-spill colours only ever seen in Formica, melamine and polyester. Yeah, that’s what makes it so ironic. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/38 "2012-08-07T17:32:26Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > [Too soon.](http://www.lileks.com/institute/interiors/) > > “All eras have bad taste. It took the 1970s to make bad taste triumphant and universal.” -James Lileks Likewise, his treatise on [The Gobbler.](http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/) ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/39 "2012-08-07T17:40:57Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I rented a house in London only about 10 years ago, and my bedroom had navy-blue shag-pile carpet in it so deep you could lose a badger in it (and previous tenants may well have done so). > > Anyway, the 1970s. What was it with green, brown and orange in that decade? That’s a serious question. Had new and exciting dyes of those hues just been invented? I look at pictures from my childhood in the late 1970s and it’s astounding: black carpet with orange and yellow swirls, an avocado green wall, orangey-brown wooden arm-chairs upholstered with bright orange fabric… It must have been like living at the bottom of a bucket of vomit. Well, look at the colors from the 50s and 60s. The most important thing for new colors is that they have to be dramatically different from the last popular colors. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474/40 "2012-08-08T18:19:42Z")
I remember in the early 90’s looking at an apartment that was seriously 70’s. The Fridge was avocado, the kitchen linoleum was harvest gold and the carpeting was deep, deep shag in a bright bloody orange color. It was so tacky, it was awesome. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-fan-of-70s-design/630474.md?page=3)