When Tech Had Personality | 90s Tech Nostalgia & Stickers
- Stephanie Garcia
- Jan 30
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 9
Ah, the ’90s 🌼—when tech was fun and didn’t overwhelm me. Don’t get me wrong, I love that we can do basically everything now with just a phone and a laptop. But there was something magical about waiting for the right song to record on a tape, or spreading all your CDs 💿 out on the floor while blasting your boombox.
I still remember Christmas 🌲 of ’95, when I got my very own boombox. It played CDs and cassettes—and best of all, it was mine. No borrowing. No asking. Just me and my music. My parents even got me a CD to go with it: Mariah Carey’s One Sweet Day. You know, the one with Boyz II Men. I listened to it on repeat until I knew every word. Zero shame.
That Christmas officially marked my transition from cassettes to CDs… though I was still very much making mixtapes. Since I didn’t have a job yet (hi, I was 11), I still had to sneak into my brother’s and sister’s collections and quietly steal—okay, borrow—a few CDs. I lived on the Batman Forever soundtrack from my brother and TLC’s CrazySexyCool from my sister, plus so many others.
As my own collection grew, nothing beat popping in a new CD, throwing on my headphones, and disappearing into my room. Veruca Salt. The Romeo + Juliet ♥️ soundtrack. No Doubt. I still remember getting home after school and my older sister sitting me down to play “Spiderwebs” for the first time—joking that it was absolutely going to be our new answering machine message. (Voicemail, if this were today.)
The boombox and VCR are not exact, but close enough. Featuring a very real Curtis Mathis TV and my cousin running around in a Ghostface mask. A very accurate snapshot of my childhood.
Growing Up With Physical Media & 90s Tech Nostalgia
And VHS 📼 —man, I love movies.
We rented everything from Hastings, Hollywood Video, and of course Blockbuster. I don’t even know how old our Curtis Mathis TV 📺 was, but honestly, I don’t remember any other TV before that one growing up. It's the only one I remember us having until around 2002, when it finally started going kaput. It was sad, because that TV was such a character. The speakers would go out, so we’d hit the side of it to get them working again. If the screen went black, we’d just turn it off and on a few times and say, “It’s fine, it’ll fix itself.”
Our Quasar VCR saw its fair share of tapes. We watched movies endlessly, recorded favorites when they aired on TV, and constantly rewound our favorite scenes so we could memorize them and quote them later (I can still quote Wayne’s World till this day). I can remember racing to grab a blank VHS when a commercial came on saying “Next on HBO…” or “Up next on USA…”. Catching it right as it started? A win. Yes, it ate tapes—and yes, that sound was pure terror 😱—but I still have a soft spot for that little guy.
Tech in the ’90s wasn’t flawless. It was bulky, a little finicky, and absolutely ate its fair share of tapes—but it was mine, and I felt pretty tech-savvy when I got it to work. Things may have been slower back then, but that’s when I really got to enjoy the little moments. I’d hang out in my bedroom listening to my boombox, flipping through CD inserts and studying the artwork, reading lyrics, and discovering hidden tracks ✨. Some nights it was the request hour on the radio, other nights it was falling asleep with my headphones 🎧 on, music still playing quietly in the background.
Watching a VHS with my best friend for the hundredth time never got old. We’d quote every line like it was brand new (My Best Friend's Wedding was on constant replay), fast-forward through the credits to see who sang that one song, or hope there might be an end-credit scene if we were lucky. Back when “scrolling” meant turning a dial, I wasn’t thinking about being present—I just was, genuinely enjoying the moment.
Final stickers designs from this little tech series-boomboxes, tapes, TV's, and a lot of nostalgia.
From Doodle to Sticker
A while back, when I was working on my To the Moon 🌙 sticker sheet, I doodled this little guy with a boombox for a head. He kind of just sat there—unfinished, waiting—along with the idea of the guy I loosely based him on (yes, a crush ♥️… we’re not unpacking that today). When I started thinking about these tech designs, I pulled him back out to see if he might finally fit.
This time, the boombox head made more sense. I was already thinking about lo-fi sounds, stereos, and old-school tech, which naturally led me to radio waves. I added them into the background so it felt like sound moving through the design—almost like a heartbeat. Like a wave. On repeat.
And because my brain 🧠 can’t help itself, I snuck in a tiny nod to Pixies on his T-shirt—just a quiet little detail, mostly for me. I guess it ended up being less about the crush and more of a small love note 💌 to the things I love.
From early sketchbook doodles to the final sticker design—watching this little boombox-headed guy slowly come to life.
That little boombox-headed guy ended up kicking off my love for these retro tech icons. From there, I moved on to my Handle With Teeth design—an ode to our Quasar VCR and that heart-stopping panic of hearing a tape start to get chewed up.
And finally, my Curtis Mathis TV tribute. RIP. 🪦 I pulled from memories of sitting on the living room floor watching You Can’t Do That on Television and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. The silver, black, and brown color palette comes straight from the devices I grew up with, and the rounded shapes echo the curve of those old TV screens.
Before I wrap this up, a quick thank-you to StickerApp for printing these designs and bringing them to life so beautifully.
Press Play
So here I am—thinking about old tech, doodling it out, and turning it into stickers.
They’re available now in the shop if they speak to you, but mostly, they’re here because nostalgia still makes me smile.
To go along with this post, I put together a Spotify playlist inspired by the songs that lived on repeat on my ’90s stereo—music for singing along with my best friends, flipping through magazines on my bedroom floor, and letting time pass without thinking too much about it.
Comments