DRAWING FROM THE PAST: WHAT IS TIMELESS DESIGN?
Whilst it is important to be aware of contemporary fashions and visual/cultural trends it is often when we look in to work from the past that the most interesting information is gleaned. It feels like such objects offer more than an aesthetic education, they tell us about the standard methods of production at the time and both the limitations and thus creativity that arose from that. With the “lobby cards” directly above being from the late 50s one can’t help but be inspired by the impact of the typographic elements and colour selection. Above them are posters for the film “Circle of Deceit” from the 80s. Now, what brought these to my attention was firstly, sandwiched between “Harry and the Hendersons” and some abysmally busy yet appropriately loud 90s action film posters, they were amazingly clean (a single font, a single image) and sophisticated (the sandy background colour with plenty of whitespace and strictly black lettering). I then thought to myself…each genre of movie appropriates a certain graphic style which I presume results in clear categorisation for the viewer. Basically I realise that, the designer of these posters did so with the intention of communicating a theme. Without knowing the film, I get a feel for some sort of dusty dangerous middle eastern intelligence report, probably something political, printed media, military related. Additionally they in themselves appear as a form of 80s photojournalism: Very strong, striking analog still paired with text in a typewriter style font. Striking a chord with me primarily because of the minimally designed yet military inspired aesthetic two styles that are forever on my radar. This visual direction would fit with contemporary fashions. Naturally it was never designed with the foresight of an audience in 2016. Could this be an example of timeless design? Or has it simply fallen in to a trend? Perhaps it is too simple to fall out of trend?
