Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
WhyNot Associates
United Kingdom
19 Look to history, but don't repeat it.
There will be an endless number of communication projects that present history as a
theme or overall context in which a given message will participate. Topics or exhibitions
that focus on historical subjects, or invitations to period-themed events, for example, are
perfect vehicles for exhuming visual style from the vaults of antiquity—even if that an-
tiquity is only twenty years old. The fun for designers in such situations is to assimilate
a period's characteristic visual details, colors, typefaces, and image styles into their own
visual sensibility, not so much copying the style outright as sampling portions thereof,
adjusting them, and reorganizing them so they become new again—while still capturing
the essence of the period and, in appropriate contexts, celebrating it.
