![[poolsuite_ui_screenshot.jpg]] [Poolsuite.fm](https://poolsuite.net/) [Are.na](https://www.are.na/block/43938686) ***Why'd I save this?*** I am a big Poolsuite fan. I discovered them about 5ish years ago, back when they were Poolside.fm, and the Poolside.fm music player had been the first time I'd seen anyone doing anything interesting with the web in like fifteen years. Ok, I'm definitely exaggerating, but it kiiiiiiinda feels like there's some truth to it. I love how the music player tangibly evokes that feeling of sunsoaked nostalgia you get for summer in all its forms. My favorite playlist is Indie Summer, and for me it somehow gives both being 7 years old and riding your bike to freedom at 6pm in summers, ***and*** lazing around with the love of your life on a yacht off the Amalfi Coast, all in a delightful interface. I also am a fan of their newsletter the Palm Report (when I bother to read newsletters) and its meandering sensual focus on *la dolce vita*. ***The music player itself*** I like the late 90s/oughts nostalgia. What creates that the vibe? Well, what I love about Poolsuite is that all the little decisions are carefully curated to create that vibe. but I'll take a stab. The Pool TV plays an infinite loop of videos that remind me of karaoke video energy -- dreamlike, ambient, liminal. You've got a mix of European and Caribbean travel footage, car advertisements, yachts, and loads of people who have whatever the opposite of iPhone face is hanging out at the beach. It's probably got a 2px corner radius, which is pretty square. Somewhat like the original Macintosh 128k. ![[apple ships first mac.png]] Now that I'm looking at the [original Macintosh ad](https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/first-mac-macintosh-128k-ships), the Poolsuite design team definitely had this in their reference materials. The color palette![[poolsuite_color_palette.png]] Must I explain it? It's like cotton candy, very pastel. Although [[why does pastel evoke nostalgia?]] hex codes `000000` `f7d5d4` `f9f0e9` `afe1e5` **The typography** My font identifier extension says the typeface for the song name is [ChiKareGo2 by Giles Booth](https://www.pentacom.jp/pentacom/bitfontmaker2/gallery/?id=3780), which looks a lot like the original Macintosh font Chicago, designed by [Susan Kare](https://kare.com/fonts/). and it's definitely doing a lot of the work here. Look at them pixels. Poolsuite is [Ishmeria](https://font.zip/ishmeria), which I have learned happens to be a monospace serif based on the text of the original Koei game, Gemfire. [](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gemfire_NES_Box_Art.jpg) So you can see the touches of retro aesthetic inspiration all around. ***The interaction*** I don’t know if this was intentional but I like how on the phone the interaction pattern matches the tab bar you would expect from a modern app but the iconography is all 90s webpage. The buttons all have the same 2ish px corner radius as the TV, using the per-side borders to give the raised pressable look. Which brings me to the retro iconography - once again, skeumorphic, pixelated, all heavily inspired by the early Mac OS/Windows aesthetics. ***What's the play?*** Errrrr, everything, can I say the design aesthetic overall? But if I had to pick one thing for me it's probably a tie between the typography and the iconography. And if I reallllly had to pick one, I'd pick the typography. Would definitely use this this type of pixel font to evoke some retro warmth. [[I Miss My Bar]] |