ALT/1977: If Today's Gadgets Had Been Made in the 70s

What if you could travel back in time to the 1970s? What would you do? That is the question asked by Alex Varanese in his wonderful ALT/1977 project. His answer?

[G]rab all the modern technology I could find, take it to the late 70's, superficially redesign it all to blend in, start a consumer electronics company to unleash it upon the world, then sit back as I rake in billions, trillions, or even millions of dollars

This fantasy is realized in the form of four period-accurate promotional posters. Above you see an MP3 player clad in wood-effect plastic with a twiddly metal knob, an LED spectrum-analyser and some mysterious "mode" and "set" buttons, all paired up with some giant retro headphones and that trademark of 1970s audio, the quarter-inch jack.

Alex' gallery also contains a notebook computer (the LapTron 64), a clamshell cellphone (the MobileVoxx) and a handheld gaming console (the Microcade 3000). If that's not enough for you, there are an assortment of semi-abstract artworks based on the products. Anyone who grew up at this time will recognize these parodies as being absolutely dead-on.

I love these pictures, not just as clever re-imaginings but as actual products. With the exception of the Sega Game Gear-alike console, which I'm not so hot on, I'd buy any one of these products to use today. Especially that amazing Pocket Hi-Fi (tagline: "Like a party in your pocket. But not in a weird way.")

ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS [Behance via ★]