Designing Forward with Retro
While design experts might offer complex reasons for our love of retro, members of the nFusion creative team easily sum up its attraction: We like it because it provokes a shared feeling of sentimentality. Retro design elements remind us of a popular shared past, and that makes us feel, to whatever degree, connected.
In creating the retro-inspired 2008 Hill Country Ride for AIDS posters, for example, art director John Livingston looked at older prints to find a style that would provoke a feeling of nostalgia. "By using illustration and design features from '40s and '50s travel posters, we tried to capture that genuine, blissful recreation feeling that those older pieces always convey," said John. The throwback design elements — the bold, slab serif typography with hand-rendered script lettering, the simplistic, screen-printed style and the warmer, natural white uncoated paper — work to remind people of a common past.
This past acts as a memory through which we can all connect. Matt Manroe, executive creative director at nFusion, acknowledges the unifying potential of retro. "It's one thing that we can all relate to in our own way," he says. "Many times in the advertising and creative worlds we relate to others through things that we are familiar with." Because so much time has passed since the old travel posters were originally printed, people have had over half a century to absorb them and agree on their meanings. The posters' aesthetic has had time to become part of our collective memory.
In the case of the HCRA posters, retro design works to warm people to a message. The retro ads say to people: Listen to us — we've got something in common. To see how people are connecting with modern retro and getting together for a good cause, visit the Hill Country Ride for AIDS website.
