{"id":4084,"date":"2020-04-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/?post_type=customer-spotlight&p=4084"},"modified":"2025-05-06T19:45:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T19:45:50","slug":"retrosupply","status":"publish","type":"customer-spotlight","link":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/customer-spotlight\/retrosupply\/","title":{"rendered":"RetroSupply Co. Creates Vintage Tools for Modern Designers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the days of sleek digital design, there\u2019s nothing quite like the look of art inked fresh onto paper. Dustin Lee\n has always thought so, from the time he was a boy living with his grandmother in California, exploring her catch-all\n closet piled high with \u201cjunk\u201d from her past: mid-century board games, comic books, matchboxes, and catalogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven though my childhood was in the 1980s, I grew up around a lot of stuff from the \u201850s and \u201860s,\u201d Lee says. \u201cI\u2019m a\n really big fan of mid-century, postwar American commercial art \u2014 I love the illustrations on cheesy mail-order ads in\n comic books and old toy packaging. I love when stuff looks like beautiful frameable art in retrospect, and it was\n totally just made originally to be disposable, to try to sell a product \u2014 the kitschy, crappy,\n but-accidentally-beautiful design of things that people probably did on assignment, never knowing that it would be\n recorded in history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a graphic designer, Lee pulls inspiration from his mid-century nostalgia. To create an authentic analog look, he\n had to build brushes, fonts, textures, and other tools to use on design programs Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate,\n and Affinity. \u201cAnd I found that it was very hard to do that if you didn\u2019t know how \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of intricacies to\n making that come off as convincing and not cheesy or weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lee uploaded his custom design kits to sell online as RetroSupply Co<\/a>. The business has since made a name for itself in the design world,\n becoming successful enough to support Lee\u2019s family, build a dream home in Washington state, and help weather the\n COVID-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are a provider of brushes, textures, fonts, and other effects for creative illustrators who want to add analog\n touches to digital work, pulling from history to provide resources that can make it so things feel a little more like\n they used to,\u201d Lee says. He\u2019s been in business for eight years now and has trusted DreamHost<\/a> to provide a steady foundation for his website from the\n beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost a clich\u00e9 to say at this point. I think most designers \u2014 and probably just people in general \u2014 feel like\n doing so much stuff online makes everything so clean and sterile,\u201d Lee says. \u201cI think people miss holding comic books\n in their hands or reading the newspaper that gets delivered to the door. A lot of the reason I started this business\n is because I would love to see people recreating that look of something really screen printed or printed on paper.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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