Modern Retro

What if today's brands
opened in 1976?

100 of the world's most recognisable brands, reimagined as 1970s high street stores that never existed. The logos, the shopfronts, the whole world rebuilt for a decade that predates them by 50 years.

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Every brand has a past it never had.

"If Spotify had a record shop on the high street in 1976, what would it look like?"

That was the question. Hand-painted lettering. Warm bulb lighting. A window display of featured records. Nothing digital. Nothing global. Just a local shop with a logo that would not exist for another 30 years.

That image was too good not to make real. So we made one. Then another. Then another. A hundred brands later, we have a high street that time never built: one that feels, somehow, like it should have existed.

The concept works because great brands have always had timeless values. Nike was always about performance. Apple was always about design. Lego was always about imagination. Strip away the digital layer and what remains is the soul of the brand, which translates perfectly to a 1970s shopfront.

Apple as a 1970s store
Apple, as imagined in 1976

100 stores. One era.

Browse all 100 stores
Spotify
Spotify
Netflix
Netflix
Nike
Nike
Lego
Lego
Tesla
Tesla
Supreme
Supreme
Starbucks
Starbucks
Airbnb
Airbnb
Discord
Discord
Balenciaga
Balenciaga
Google
Google
TikTok
TikTok

Hover to see the store.

Every brand in the collection. Move your cursor over any name.

Every store comes to life.

Each store has its own film: short loops of the shopfront, lit as it would have been on a quiet Tuesday morning in 1976.

Watch all films

How it's made

AI-directed. Not AI-generated.

The distinction matters. The AI generates the image. The brief determines whether it is any good.

01
The brief

Every store starts with a detailed prompt specifying era, neighbourhood character, lighting quality, signage style, window display, and the specific visual language of the brand being translated. A Balenciaga brief looks nothing like a Lego brief.

02
The generation

The AI produces multiple candidates per brand. Most are rejected. The ones that pass feel genuinely of their time: not costumed or nostalgic, but as if someone caught the shop on a grey morning in 1976 and never thought to tell anyone.

03
The edit

The best image becomes the store. The video is generated from the still. Both go through one final check: does this feel real? Would you walk past it without noticing? The ones that pass that test make the collection.

100 Brands reimagined

From Anthropic to YouTube

1976 The era

A decade before most of them existed

100 Films made

Every store has its own short film

0 Stores that exist

Every one is entirely fictional

A project by Mike Litman.

Mike is a product builder and former ad agency strategist based in London. Modern Retro is one of 20+ AI-native projects he has built and shipped since 2025.

The idea came from a single question about Spotify. The obsession came from discovering how well the concept worked: a great brand, stripped of its digital context, still reads as a great brand. That felt worth exploring at scale.

For press enquiries, brand commissions, or print orders, one address covers everything.

Spotify Monzo Revolut Stripe
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Browse the gallery

All 100 stores, laid out as they would appear on the high street. Filter by brand, category, or era.

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Buy a print

Museum-quality giclée prints of any store in the collection. Ready to frame.

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Enter any brand name and see what its 1970s high street store would have looked like.

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