Known for Unknown. Images from the Past for the Present Future

Abstract

In the very last years of the contemporary age, we are observing various processes that interest the field of design, particularly for what concerns product design, graphics and communication, and their development in relation to the historical matter. In such a situation, this impacts on the contemporary western society and on current trends in customs and tastes. However, it is actually not so incomprehensible, neither is a behaviour completely new. The meaning of a family air, the quid that adds a personal and significant value to an object and to a product is somehow indefinable but links the consumer, and maybe more the ‘prosumer’, strongly to itself, in a cross-process of personal and historical construction of narrative. In some artefacts history meets and talks to the stories: this is why we do love them.

Keywords

• images of tangible and intangible heritage
• collaborative images and imagination
• design history
• nostalgia and revival
• retro and vintage