Looking for a worn-out, 90s-looking aesthetic to add depth, dimension, and character to your designs? Then you might want to try grunge textures.
A study conducted at University College London suggests that textures can evoke a range of emotions and perceptions in viewers — making them a powerful design element for communicating ideas and reinforcing messages.
Using texture effects in your design can create a tactile visual experience and the illusion of a 3D surface. With grungy textures, you can evoke a dirty, distressed, or aged look that can make your designs stand out or establish a unique visual identity for a brand.
Let’s take a deep dive into what grunge textures are and how to use them in graphic design — make sure to read to the end for your free downloadable texture pack!
How did grunge textures in design originate?
The term “grunge” emerged at the end of the 1980s to describe the aesthetic of the underground music scene in Seattle, spearheaded by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains. The grunge look was so disheveled that Alice in Chains’ original lead singer, Layne Staley, was once mistaken for a homeless person while sitting outside a recording studio.
The raw and gritty aesthetic reflected grunge artists’ rejection of and non-conformity with the mainstream. It became synonymous with early 90s pop culture and had a profound influence on graphic design, with designers incorporating grungy textures, colors, and elements into their work to echo this sense of rebellion. Grungy textures such as distressed metal, worn paper, and graffiti began to appear in posters, album covers, and other design projects.
The grungy look remained popular until the early 2000s, as designers sought to create designs that felt more authentic and handcrafted. With the advent of professional digital design tools, creating and manipulating grungy textures became easier, and designers began experimenting with new techniques and styles.
Today, grunge textures mostly evoke feelings of nostalgia and a retro theme that is popular not only with Gen X and Millennials, who remember it from the 90s, but also with Gen Z, who yearn for a past that they never lived through.
In fact, Gen Z’s nostalgia for the pre-internet era is a driving force behind the current resurgence of grunge fashion that will likely precipitate the rise of grunge as a popular design aesthetic — in contrast to the clean, minimalist look that dominated the 2010s.
Grunge textures in design
Grunge textures emulate aged and worn surfaces like concrete walls or rusty metal, thus offering a raw and gritty aesthetic for filling negative space in designs.
As a graphic designer, you can use these textures to infuse edginess, rebellion, or a distressed vintage look, enhancing character and personality. Grunge textures are particularly popular in music, fashion, and urban-themed designs, providing a versatile tool to create striking visual contrast and depth within a minimalistic design.
5 easy-to-follow steps for creating your own texture effects in Photoshop
Here’s how you can create your own textures in Photoshop:
Step one
Find a free stock image (Unsplash and Pixels are good sources) with an interesting pattern or texture — for example, thunder, a ripped magazine, a cracked wall, marble, or whatever works for your piece.
Step two
Open the image in Photoshop, click on ‘Adjustments’ on the right-hand side of the document, and select ‘Hue/Saturation.’ Then, adjust the Saturation to -100.
Step three
Click on the ‘Adjustments’ tab again, select ‘Levels,’ then adjust the toggles. Bring the white tab near the peak of the levels and bring in the black tab as well. You want the end result to have a striking contrast between the white and the black in your image.
Step four
Select all the layers in your document and merge them (CMD + E). You want the main color of your texture to be black, so in most cases, you’ll need to invert the layer.
To do this, go to Image > Adjustments > Invert (you can always invert it back once you test out the texture on your artwork). Then, save your image.
Step five
Open up the artwork you want to apply the effect to and add it to the document. Then add an adjust layer — we’d recommend ‘overlay, multiple, or screen,’ but play around and see what best fits your design.
Types of grunge textures
Now that you know how to create grunge textures, let’s take a look at the various grunge textures you can incorporate into your designs, along with examples of each.
Metal grunge texture
A metal grunge texture gives a rough, industrial look to designs, and it’s often used in designs for heavy metal bands, the automotive industry, or for creating urban grunge looks. You can create it by photographing or scanning a metal surface or using metal texture stock photos or overlays.
Notice how the metal texture background on the Zaha Hadid Architects website gives it an industrial look and feel.
Paper grunge texture
A grungy paper texture is created by photographing or scanning crumpled, torn, or stained paper. It gives a vintage, weathered look to designs and is often used in designs for book covers, flyers, posters, and vintage-style graphics.
Check out this example of the paper scan aesthetic from They Make Apps.
Copy scan grunge texture
A scan texture is created using a photocopier or scanner to copy a textured surface. This type of texture gives a rough, gritty look to designs and can be used in designs for grunge-style posters, album covers, and urban street art.
The Black Sheep Agency does a great job of incorporating the photocopy texture into its web design.
Brick grunge texture
Bricks can evoke an edgy, urban feel and add street cred to any design. You can create this texture using stock photos of bricks and walls — especially ones that look slightly broken or run down.
Look at how the use of a brick-texture background brings urban appeal to the Tiger Beer website:
Free grunge texture pack
To save you some time, the Playbook team has created a pack of ten custom-made grunge textures of varying types that you can start incorporating into your designs right away.
Whether you want a dash of nostalgia or rebellious overtones, these high-resolution templates (and this guide) have you covered.
Download the texture pack here.
Smell like teen spirit with grungy textures
Using grungy textures in your designs can help you recreate the anti-establishment sentiment of the pre-internet era, evoke feelings of nostalgia in people who remember it and people who don’t, and create an edgy, unique aesthetic.
Hopefully, by now, you’re brimming with inspiration and ready to start making your first grunge-flavored designs. Of course, you’ll need the right tools for storing, managing, and presenting these designs to the world.
Although many designers rely on Google Drive, it doesn’t fulfill all of these functions — unlike Playbook, which allows you to store, manage, and share your designs on a professional-looking website in just one click.
Want a full breakdown of how Playbook stacks up against G-Drive? We’ve got you covered. Check out this article that compares their specs.