Vintage

Revived

Vintage Vornado Tracy Holdeman reports that he’s used retro references in many projects, but until this assignment he’d never had a client not only ask for retro, but also be able to provide the historic reference material. His client, Vornado Air Circulation Systems, decided to bring one of its former products—the VornadoFan—back to life. Holdeman’s firm developed packaging and a sales brochure based on an old owner’s guide cover—even recreating a worn, faded look for the background color— along with elements of Vornado advertisements from the 1950s. Holdeman recreated the Vornado logotype, invoking the era of the original hand lettering.

Original

Redesign

Nostalgic display Michael Doret has a large collection of interesting historic type samples and uses them to bring fresh perspectives to his work. His logo for Cliff’s Amusement Park in Albuquerque, N.M., features display type created to evoke a prior era. The new design includes a visual nod to the previous Cliff’s logo by including a hint of the typestyle: thick and thin with Copperplate style serifs. In addition to matchbook covers, decals, and old lettering books, Doret keeps his camera handy to document out-of-the-ordinary things as he sees them.

17th Century

20th Century

Distinctive scripts Some designers have discovered the beauty of work of pre-20th century origin. Margo Chase of Chase Design Group bought a book—published in Paris in 1647—from a rare-book dealer and used it as inspiration for the cover of Desire, a journal she created for Chronicle Books. The influence of the older book’s ornate scripts is evident in the flourishes in the journal, although the new book is undeniably original in its design.

Period

Conemporary

From old to new Other hand-drawn display type by Chase is startlingly contemporary, despite being influenced by antique styles. In part this may be due to the intricacy of her work; such skill is rare today. Shown here are logos for Charmed, a television series on The WB; The Flying Dutchman, an animated feature film title for Curious Pictures; and Tattoo Teardrop, a short film about gangs in L.A.