Top 20 'Solarpunk-Infused' Art Styles to create for Building Hopeful Future Worlds in 2025
Hey creators, innovators, and dreamers! Are you tired of the endless parade of dystopian futures? You know the ones—all grim skies, chrome-plated misery, and cynical anti-heroes. It feels like we’ve explored every possible way the world could end, but what about how it could begin anew? What if we dared to imagine a future that is not just survivable, but beautiful, sustainable, and deeply human?
This is the vibrant, sun-drenched heart of Solarpunk. More than just an aesthetic, it's a movement, a philosophy, and a creative rebellion against apocalyptic despair. Solarpunk envisions a world where technology and nature exist in harmony, where communities thrive on renewable energy, and where craftsmanship and beauty are woven into the fabric of everyday life. It's about practical optimism, building a better future with our own two hands—and our own two million pixels.
But what does this hopeful future look like? It's not a single, monolithic style. That’s the beauty of it! Solarpunk is a garden with a thousand different flowers. As an artist, you have the incredible power to visualize these possibilities. To get your creative gears turning for 2025, I’ve compiled a list of 20 distinct art styles you can infuse with the Solarpunk ethos. Let's pick up our styluses, brushes, and 3D modeling tools and start building worlds we actually want to live in.
1. Art Nouveau Solarpunk
Art Nouveau, with its flowing, organic lines and deep inspiration from the natural world, is a perfect match for Solarpunk. This style rejected rigid industrial forms in its time, and we can echo that sentiment today. It's all about celebrating the curve of a vine, the pattern of a dragonfly's wing, and the elegant efficiency of nature.
To give it a Solarpunk twist, integrate sustainable technology into its ornate forms. Imagine stained-glass windows that are also patterned, semi-transparent solar panels, casting colourful light into a communal library. Picture wrought-iron balconies that are not just decorative, but also serve as frameworks for vertical hydroponic gardens, their sinuous lines mimicking the plants they support. Think less about ornamentation for its own sake and more about beautiful, functional integration.
2. Arts and Crafts Solarpunk
The Arts and Crafts movement was a direct response to industrial mass production, championing skilled craftsmanship, natural materials, and simple, honest design. It valued the maker's hand and the inherent beauty of wood, stone, and clay. This philosophy aligns perfectly with Solarpunk's emphasis on community, local production, and sustainable materials.
Infuse this style by depicting community maker spaces where people repair and upgrade their own devices. Visualize architecture built with locally sourced timber and rammed earth, featuring visible joinery and handcrafted details. Your characters could wear clothing made from natural, durable fibers, mended and customized over time. The technology here isn't sleek and invisible; it’s robust, repairable, and has a story to tell.
3. Miyazaki-esque / Ghibli-core
The enchanting worlds of Studio Ghibli are perhaps the most popular visual touchstone for Solarpunk, and for good reason. Hayao Miyazaki’s films masterfully blend nature, technology, and a deep sense of wonder. They often show nature reclaiming man-made structures and feature protagonists who possess a profound respect for the environment.
To capture this style, focus on lush, hand-painted textures and a sense of lived-in detail. Your scenes should be overflowing with life—vines creeping over solar-powered trams, moss growing on friendly robots, and rooftop gardens bustling with activity. Pay attention to the quiet moments: the gentle whir of a wind turbine, the joy of a shared meal made from community-grown vegetables, and the majestic beauty of a clean, blue sky.
4. Afrofuturist Solarpunk
Afrofuturism envisions futures centered on Black history, culture, and aesthetics, blending science fiction with non-Western cosmologies. When fused with Solarpunk, it creates a powerful vision of sustainable futures that are explicitly decolonized, diverse, and vibrant. It's a rejection of the idea that the future must be Eurocentric.
Imagine cities where advanced green technology is decorated with bold, geometric patterns inspired by Kente cloth or Ndebele art. Picture high-tech agricultural drones designed with the aesthetics of Dogon masks, tending to community farms. This style is a celebration of culture, ancestry, and innovation, showing a world that has advanced technologically without sacrificing its soul or heritage.
5. Indigenous Futurism Solarpunk
This style centers on Indigenous knowledge, traditions, and perspectives to imagine a future where ancestral wisdom and advanced technology coexist. It is a powerful counter-narrative to colonialist sci-fi, proposing that sustainability is not a new invention but a practice rooted in millennia of experience living in balance with the land.
Visualize architecture that learns from traditional forms—like longhouses or pueblos—but is built with advanced, sustainable materials like self-healing bioconcrete and mycelium insulation. Create technologies that are based on principles of reciprocity and respect for nature, rather than extraction and control. The art here tells a story of cultural resilience, sovereignty, and a future where humanity has remembered its role as a caretaker of the Earth.
6. Art Deco Solarpunk
Art Deco is known for its sleek geometry, bold symmetry, and luxurious feel—a celebration of the machine age. At first glance, it might seem at odds with Solarpunk's organic nature, but that tension is what makes the fusion so exciting. It's about repurposing the optimism of a past era for a greener purpose.
Take the iconic shapes of the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building and reimagine them as "arcologies"—self-sufficient vertical cities. Their geometric patterns could be formed by modular solar panels and algae tubes. The lavish brass and chrome could be replaced with polished recycled metals and bio-luminescent resins. It’s a style that says progress and beauty don't have to be sacrificed for sustainability; they can be redefined by it.
7. Clean Vector Solarpunk
Think of the clean, minimalist style you see in modern infographics and tech company websites. This vector art style uses simple shapes, bright gradients, and a clear, optimistic visual language. It’s perfect for creating Solarpunk art that feels accessible, modern, and hopeful.
Use this style to create schematics for open-source sustainable tech, like a 3D-printable water filter or a community-managed energy grid. Design user interfaces for Solarpunk apps that help people forage, share resources, or organize local events. Its clarity and simplicity make it an excellent tool for communicating complex ideas about how a Solarpunk society could function, making the future feel both achievable and inviting.
8. Ligne Claire Solarpunk
Popularized by Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, the "ligne claire" (clear line) style uses crisp, strong outlines and flat, uniform colors. There's very little shading, which gives every object in the frame equal importance. This creates a wonderfully readable and democratic visual field.
Apply this to Solarpunk by drawing detailed cross-sections of eco-buildings, showing every room and its function, from the rooftop apiary to the sub-basement water recycling plant. It's an ideal style for narrative comics or illustrations that tell a story about community and technology. The clarity of the lines can make even the most fantastical green-tech concepts feel grounded and understandable.
9. Pixel Art Solarpunk
There's a unique charm and nostalgia to pixel art. It reminds us of classic video games where we built cities and explored new worlds. Why not use this beloved medium to build a better future, one pixel at a time?
Create bustling cityscapes where tiny pixelated figures cycle across green bridges and tend to rooftop farms. Design a mock-up for a Solarpunk farming simulator or a city-builder game. The limitations of the medium force you to focus on iconic shapes and clear communication, making it a great way to distill the essence of a Solarpunk world into a small, delightful package.
10. Low-Poly Solarpunk
Low-poly 3D art uses a small number of polygons to create a stylized, geometric, and often beautiful aesthetic. It's a style that feels both digital and handcrafted, sitting at a unique intersection that suits Solarpunk well. It’s efficient, clean, and focuses on form and color.
Model serene landscapes where faceted mountains meet crystal-clear rivers flowing past solar-powered villages. Create concept art for games set in a Solarpunk world, where the stylized look makes it easier to focus on gameplay and exploration. The inherent simplicity of low-poly art can convey a sense of calm and order, reflecting the balanced harmony of a Solarpunk society.
11. Gouache & Watercolor Solarpunk
The soft, organic textures of traditional media like gouache and watercolor are perfect for capturing the gentle side of Solarpunk. These mediums excel at depicting the interplay of light, water, and foliage. Their imperfections and happy accidents can add a warm, human touch that contrasts with cold, sterile sci-fi.
Paint scenes of a sun-drenched afternoon in a community garden, with light filtering through the leaves of a fruit tree. Illustrate a children's book about life in a Solarpunk city. The bleed of watercolors can beautifully render a misty morning over an aquaponics farm, while the opaque vibrancy of gouache can make a field of sunflowers powering a town simply glow.
12. Photobashed Concept Art Solarpunk
A staple of the entertainment industry, photobashing involves combining and painting over photographs to create realistic and detailed concept art quickly. This technique can be powerfully used to ground fantastical Solarpunk visions in a believable reality. Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we see this as a key tool for professional world-builders.
Take a photo of a current-day cityscape and digitally "retrofit" it. Paint in vertical gardens, green roofs, sky-bridges, and clean-energy transport. Use textures from real-life foliage, bamboo structures, and recycled materials to add a layer of tangible realism. This method is incredibly effective for showing a transitional future—one that grew out of our present, making it feel all the more possible.
13. Biopunk / Organic Tech
This is where sci-fi gets truly squishy. Biopunk focuses on the fusion of biology and technology. When filtered through a Solarpunk lens, it moves away from dystopian body horror and towards a symbiotic relationship with living technology. It's about working with biology, not just mimicking it.
Illustrate architecture that is literally alive—buildings grown from genetically engineered trees that regulate their own temperature and repair themselves. Design tools and devices that are part organic, part machine, like a bioluminescent lamp powered by glowing algae that you feed every morning. This style explores the cutting edge of what "green tech" could mean, creating a future that feels truly alien and wondrous.
14. Lunarpunk
If Solarpunk is the sun-drenched day, Lunarpunk is its mystical, moonlit counterpart. It focuses on the beauty and community of the night in a sustainable world. This aesthetic is about softer, more reflective technologies: bioluminescence, moonlight harvesting, and quiet, communal nocturnal activities.
Create art bathed in the cool glow of the moon and shimmering fungi. Depict communities gathering for stargazing in cities with minimal light pollution, or nighttime markets lit by glowing plants and kinetic-powered lanterns. Lunarpunk offers a gentler, more mysterious vision of the future, reminding us that sustainability includes preserving the darkness of the night sky.
15. Tidalpunk
A sub-genre focused on life on, in, and around water. As climate change affects our coastlines, Tidalpunk imagines resilient communities that have adapted by working with the ocean. It’s about wave power, sustainable aquaculture, and architecture that can withstand rising sea levels.
Your art could feature cities of interconnected houseboats and floating platforms, powered by the ebb and flow of the tides. Visualize underwater habitats and vertical kelp farms that provide food and clean the water. The color palette is full of deep blues, sea greens, and the pearlescent shimmer of shells, creating a world that is both adventurous and serene.
16. Maker-Culture / Kitbashed Solarpunk
This style celebrates the DIY, hands-on, and resourceful spirit of the maker movement. It shows that a Solarpunk future isn't just handed to us fully formed; it's built piece by piece, often from repurposed and salvaged materials. The aesthetic is functional, a bit messy, and full of ingenuity.
Illustrate a workshop where someone is converting an old gasoline car into an electric vehicle, its panels covered in a patchwork of scavenged solar cells. Draw a Rube Goldberg-like contraption for automated garden watering, made from old bicycle parts and kitchen utensils. This style emphasizes process over polish and celebrates the clever, resourceful individual as a hero of the sustainable future.
17. Architectural Digest Solarpunk
Let’s zoom in from the cityscapes and focus on the intimate, human-scale spaces. What does the interior of a Solarpunk home look like? This style is about envisioning sustainable interior design that is both beautiful and functional.
Create concepts for living rooms with modular furniture made from sustainable bamboo or mycelium composites. Design kitchens with integrated composting systems and window-mounted hydroponic herb gardens. The lighting is natural, supplemented by energy-efficient LEDs, and every object is either beautifully crafted, deeply personal, or serves a useful, sustainable purpose. It's minimalism without the sterility, and coziness with a conscience.
18. Botanical Illustration Solarpunk
Take the precision and detail of classic botanical illustrations and apply it to the speculative flora of a Solarpunk world. This style is perfect for world-building, creating a field guide to the plants that make this future possible.
Draw a detailed diagram of a "nitrogen-fixing fern" that enriches the soil of a vertical farm. Illustrate the life cycle of a "carbon-capture cactus" that purifies the air. This scientific, detailed approach lends a sense of credibility and well-researched depth to your world, showing the biological building blocks of your green society.
19. Studio Ghibli Food-style Solarpunk
Anyone who has watched a Ghibli film knows the food is a character in itself. The loving detail given to a slice of toast, a bowl of ramen, or a glistening pastry makes them look incredibly delicious. Now, apply that same artistic reverence to the food of a Solarpunk future.
Illustrate a community potluck where every dish is vibrant, fresh, and colorful. Paint a close-up of a genetically engineered "sunberry" that glows faintly. Show the process of baking bread in a communal solar oven. This style focuses on the joy and community that comes from growing, preparing, and sharing good, sustainable food—a cornerstone of the Solarpunk ethos.
20. Ceramic & Pottery Solarpunk
Let's get even more tactile. What do the everyday objects of a Solarpunk world feel like? This style explores the pottery, tools, and functional crafts of the future, blending ancient techniques with new technology.
Imagine 3D-printed clay containers with integrated self-cooling properties for food storage, their surfaces decorated with nature-inspired glazes. Design ceramic water filters that are both effective and beautiful pieces of art for the home. This style grounds the future in the earthy, tangible feel of fired clay, reminding us that even in a high-tech world, there is immense value in objects made with care, purpose, and artistry.
The Future is a Blank Canvas
The future is not a destination we arrive at; it's a world we build together, choice by choice, and brushstroke by brushstroke. As my work with Goh Ling Yong has always emphasized, artists are not just decorators of the world—we are its architects and dreamers. By choosing to create images of a hopeful, sustainable, and equitable future, we do more than just make pretty pictures. We plant seeds of possibility in the collective imagination.
These 20 styles are just starting points, invitations to experiment and blend. Mix the clear lines of Ligne Claire with the lush textures of watercolor. Combine the organic forms of Art Nouveau with the DIY aesthetic of Maker-Culture. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination.
So, what are you waiting for? Pick a style that excites you and create something. Show us a future powered by the sun, rooted in community, and blooming with life.
Which of these styles sparks your creativity the most? Do you have another Solarpunk-infused style you love? Share your thoughts and link to your creations in the comments below! Let’s inspire each other.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
Stay updated with the latest posts and insights by following on your favorite platform!