RetroPauseDesign and advertising
Thematic archive · Design and advertising

Design and the visual languages of everyday life

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Contemporary

Advertising as a Design Archive: What a Period Piece Can Tell Us

Posters, advertisements, packaging, magazines and displays are not merely commercial media: they can also be used to study visual techniques, media and cultural contexts. This guide proposes reading them as documents, while addressing their limits and the importance of cataloguing.

Before 1950

From Wrapper to Album: How Stickers Became a Collecting Ritual in Spain

Spanish stickers did not begin as a stand-alone product: they moved from accompanying goods to being sold in packs and arranged in albums. This account explains what changed in that transition, why swapping duplicates mattered, and where the available history has limits.

Contemporary

When Fashion Enters the Museum: Collection, Context and Conservation

A fashion collection is not merely an assemblage of beautiful garments: it requires documentation, exhibition limits and a cultural reading. The Museo del Traje preserves almost 30,000 objects, while museum research helps explain why wearing, displaying and preserving are inseparable decisions.

1960s

Madrid, 1940–1970: How to Read Fashion Through Garments, Photographs and the Press

The exhibitions and collections cited by Spanish institutions offer a way to approach Madrid fashion from the post-war period to the 1970s without treating a single image as a complete truth. This guide proposes reading garments, accessories, photography and the press together, while distinguishing what can be stated from what must remain open.

1970s

Stickers, Packets and Albums: How Collecting Became a Shared Ritual

From stickers attached to consumer goods to albums sold in packets, the Spanish history of sticker collecting explains a leisure practice based on completing, trading and preserving. Panini’s international Mexico 1970 album helps locate a decisive shift: football turned an already widespread practice into a mass phenomenon.