Utopian Scholastic is an aesthetic that was popular in the education field from the late 1980s to early 2000s. It consists of stock image collage, early CGI, references to academia, references to surrealism, and serifed fonts. On this week’s episode, Joseph and Nathan go into a deep dive of Utopian Scholastic and begin by discussing how the aesthetic was first identified by someone inspired by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute. They then theorize how factors like the echo boom, utopian beliefs about the internet, and the relative parity of traditional and digital mediums caused Utopian Scholastic to first emerge. Amongst other things they discuss how Frasurbane acts as a base for the aesthetic and how the Eyewitness TV show replicated the style of DK Eyewitness books.

Links:

Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/silentgeneration/utopian-scholastic/ 

Utopian Scholastic CARI Page 

Utopian Scholastic Aesthetics Wiki Page

Evan Collin’s Utopian Scholastic Are.Na Page

The Most Overlooked Aesthetic : Utopian Scholastic by Kat Online

Utopian Scholastic Designs from a Pre-9/11 World

The post in Global Village Coffeehouse and Suze Huldt’s comments

Peggy McNamara’s art website

Ship With Butterfly Sails by Salvador Dali 

DK Eyewitness Intro 

The Making of Eyewitness

Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fair

Artwork:

The Arts in Education Poster

Recorded on 5/18/2025