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RETROPAUSEARCHIVE / 1970—2009
RetroPauseDesign and advertising
Thematic archive · Design and advertising

Design and the visual languages of everyday life

Posters, packaging, typefaces and interfaces make the choices of an era visible. We explore what these pieces set out to communicate, and how they organize information or suggest ways to use objects.

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Readings to help you find your bearings.

Analysis · NOW

Neo-Retro Packaging: Signs of the Past, Brands of the Present

Neo-retro design combines graphic codes from different periods to give contemporary packaging an impression of craft and authenticity. A study of package design identifies the devices behind that effect and explores the associations they evoke—without treating them as proof of a brand’s history or how its products are made.

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Design and advertising

A story in context

Design organizes information and proposes ways to use objects. Comparing different pieces helps distinguish choices made for a practical function from choices that are simply aesthetic labels.

The focus here is visual language as it appears in objects and interfaces. Decoration explores spaces; Software, by contrast, looks at digital tools for creating.

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Three perspectives on the archive.

Featured dossier

Contemporary retro design: how to cite the past without mistaking it for the original

A familiar silhouette can evoke another era without turning a new object into a historical one. A careful reading of retro design compares form, materials and function while considering the contexts that give each design meaning.

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Documented milestones

  1. 1776

    Goya paints *The Picnic on the Banks of the Manzanares*

    A source identifies Goya’s painting, also called *The Picnic*, as a work from 1776 and says it was inspired by a play of the same name. The scene documents an artistic depiction of a merienda, not everyday practice in itself.

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  2. 1810

    Peugeot begins its activity making mills and household utensils

    Peugeot’s activity began in 1810 as a workshop making mills and other household goods, before its later move into bicycles and automobiles.

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  3. 1815

    The Spanish peineta arrives in Buenos Aires

    The Spanish peineta was introduced in Buenos Aires around 1815 and became a precursor to the Río de la Plata peinetón.

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  4. 1819

    The Prado Museum Founded as the Royal Museum of Paintings

    The Prado Museum was founded as the Royal Museum of Paintings; the history of its restoration workshops is studied from that year through archival documentation.

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  5. 1820

    Start of documented use of the peinetón in Buenos Aires

    The documented period of use of the peinetón, a monumental hair ornament, among women in Buenos Aires begins, extending until 1837.

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The key players

3DO Interactive Multiplayer1993Adidas1970Adobe Illustrator1987AirTableAlois RieglAnna Wintour1949

Objects with a story

An archive for studying contemporary art

Visit the room · Computer classroom

The documentation centre as material memory

Visit the room · 1980s living room

From “contemporary” to “modern”: an institutional record

Visit the room · Newsstand

Latest additions

Contemporary

Heisei retro: objects that hold memories and invite new discoveries

Heisei retro brings together objects and practices from Japan between 1989 and 2019, but it belongs not only to those who lived through the era. Tamagotchi, stickers, purikura, anime and music show how a reissue can revive not just a design, but ways of playing, making and sharing.

1950s

From 78s to LPs: how record formats organized musical time

The playing time on each side of a record shaped what could be recorded, how music was released and how listeners used their players. From shellac 78s to Columbia’s microgroove LP and RCA Victor’s 45-rpm single, changing formats altered musical publishing and home listening without dictating a single idea of what an album should be.

1970s

Pong and the arcade cabinet: controls that turned a game into a social encounter

In Pong, two rotary controls and a shared cabinet made the duel easy to see—and gave people waiting for a turn a reason to watch. The game’s path from a prototype tested in a Sunnyvale bar to home versions shows how controls and setting could reshape the experience even when the basic mechanics remained familiar.

Contemporary

The Fame: Lady Gaga turned glam theatricality into electronic pop

On her 2008 debut, Lady Gaga connected 1970s glam rock and 1980s electronic pop through danceable songs, deliberate visual theatricality and a participatory idea of fame. The Fame did not reconstruct the past; it adapted it to an increasingly media-driven pop culture.

1950s

How the microgroove made longer listening possible

The microgroove LP did more than fit more music on each side: it helped establish the album, coexisted with the 45 rpm single and reshaped everyday playback. Its history connects engineering, commercial formats and the practices that kept vinyl in circulation after the CD’s rise.

Contemporary

Heisei retro: remembering not just the objects, but how they were used

Tamagotchi, Tamamori stickers and purikura show that revisiting the past involves more than reissuing its imagery: it also means considering what people did with these objects and how they circulate today. Heisei retro brings together memory and first-time discovery without reducing the era to a single experience.

1990s

What Disney Animation’s Production Art Reveals

Drawings, story sketches, concept art, and background paintings are not incomplete versions of a film: each belongs to a different stage and answers a different question. Read alongside sequences and finished shots, they reveal decisions about staging, style, and collaboration.

Sources for the selected readings

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