Timelines

By WGSN CREATIVE TEAM, 14 August 2009

Spring/summer 2011 Macro Trends

Timelines

Sensory

Fair & Square

Storytelling has evolved on to a whole new level, as we take a journey in time and place. The historic
past, the here and now, and fast-moving science fuse together to create the future. Its the mix of multilayered references that creates something new.

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This is not about a retro vision of the future, but instead about taking products and ideas directly from the
past, adding a contemporary filter and an advanced technology layer. The result? A time hybrid that feels
totally fresh.

Untitled #1 by Agnieszka Lasota is a perfect illustration of history, modernism and technology. The artist
has encased her grandmothers 90-year-old oak table in electro-polarised glass skins. When an electric
current is activated, the table top becomes a screen showing a digital video projection representing the
tables past life.
The piece materially represents different eras of technology and design, with the designers roots and
culture creating an intriguing narrative for the viewer. A physical timeline of design history and future
possibility is established and made into an inspiring product.
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Be excited by artists and designers who look backwards, forwards and sideways in their approach and
produce work that archives, curates and records the life of a concept or product.

Research and Reference

LIFE LOGGING / WORKING WITH MEMORIES / SLOW DOWN / TRADITION MEETS
TECHNOLOGY / FOSSILS OF THE FUTURE / CULTURAL OVERLAY / LEGACY

LIFE LOGGING
THE DESIRE TO LOG
STORIES AND THE
IMPORTANCE OF
DOCUMENTING MEMORIES
IS OPENING UP A WORLD OF
DESIGN POSSIBILITIES.
Polish designer Agnieszka
Lasota calls her pieces
vehicles of time and with them
explores the meeting place
between memory, nostalgia and
progress.
Crucially it is not just the story
behind the work that is
important here but the actual
record of time.
www.agnieszka-lasota.pl

The city of Memory project tags

specific locations in New York
City with stories that have
occurred there over the last 40
years. The interactive map plots
the stories - both complex and
simple - on to the urban
landscape.
www.cityofmemory.org
Creating a personal timeline is
increasingly easy through
websites such as:
www.thismoment.com
allofme.com
These sites allow people to
capture meaningful moments in
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their lives, as individuals and in

collaboration with their family
and friends. They can sequence
those moments on a personal
timeline of photos, video, blogs
and social networks to create a
digital reflection of their realworld lives.

Keep three questions at the

heart of your thinking. On a
basic level what is, and how do
you communicate, your brands
story? Its not simply about a
history lesson.
How can you use the power of
nostalgia for iconic products as
an emotional hook for todays
consumer?
And thirdly, technology is no
longer hard and impersonal, so
how can you apply it to your
brand values?

WORKING WITH MEMORIES

THE FOCUS ON MEMORIES
EVOLVES FROM LAST
SEASON'S EMOTIVE TREND.
IN 2011 EMOTIONAL
CONNECTION WILL STILL BE
KEY IN ENGAGING THE
CONSUMER. NOW WE SEE
ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS
BEGINNING TO ACTUALLY
USE THE EXPERIENCE OF
MEMORY IN PRODUCT
DESIGN.
Designer Pia Interlandi, who is
currently taking her Doctorate of
Philosophy (Architecture and
Design) at RMIT University,
Melbourne, is researching the
notion of garments that record
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the passage of time. These

fabrics and apparel are
designed to make use of
transformational processes,
such as decomposition and
dissolving.
Her work offers valuable insight
into developing eco fabrics for
the apparel industry,
encouraging new thinking about
a products lifespan.

SLOW DOWN
Students at Goldsmiths Digital
Studios - at Goldsmiths Art
College, London - research and
develop new ways to explore
simulation, reality and memory
through interactive installations.
www.gold.ac.uk
Jeehee Lees Memory Dust
project allows people to
physically interact with a
memory. The viewer can blow
away virtual dust from images
displayed on a digital photo
platform. The result is a
combination of the past image
with the present markings of the
user.

THE POST-RECESSIONARY
WORLD HAS REASSESSED
ITS OBSESSIONS. SPEED IS
NO LONGER TAKING STOCK
AND THE DESIGN
OPPORTUNITIES THIS
OFFERS ARE WHAT COUNT.
British-Israeli photographer
Yishay Garbasz uses a bulky,
large-format camera to force
herself to slow down.
Her recent project, In My
Mother's Footsteps,is an
exploration of the inheritance of
memory, as well as a healing
process. Garbasz retraces the
steps of her mother across
Europe during World War Two.
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This is not about heritage, this

is about the act of memory and
building that into new product.

Often travelling on foot over

long distances, having such a
large camera forced her to stop
and spend time at each
location, letting the image come
to her, opening herself and the
lens to what was there.
www.yishay.com

TRADITION MEETS
TECHNOLOGY
OPPOSITES NOW ATTRACT.
THE OLD AND THE NEW ARE
NO LONGER ON PARALLEL
PATHS AND THEIR FUSION IS
CREATING FRESH IDEAS.
Blurbis a company and
community that still believes
passionately in the joyof books reading them, making them,
sharing them and selling them.
By refusing to reject the new
and by moving online, they have
given anew lease of life to book
publishing, making it possible
for anyone torecord themselves
in their own book.
www.blurb.com
Paper Beats Internet is another
site that uses the space
betweenanalogue and digital to
carve out a new form of
communication.
Users post an initial drawing on
the website and others create
commentand response
drawings that work off the first
drawings theme. Besidesbeing
aesthetically pleasing, the time
and care that go into doing
adrawing adds a sense of
thought, warmth and depth to
the usually quick,off-the-cuff

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world of social media.

www.paperbeatsinternet.com

FOSSILS OF THE FUTURE

A highly visual trend weve
noticed is for artists to
reillustrate stories, comics and
fairy tales already famous for
their graphic identity.
We found reinterpretations of
DC Comics Batman by a local
artist in the LA bookstore Top
Secret Headquarters.
The illustrations are full of
affection for the original and
build on fond memories of our
childhood favourites.

Consumers happily buy into this

reworking of the familiar,
whereas they might avoid the
totally new. The fusion of old
and new reaches out to wide
age and interest groups, being
inclusive rather than exclusive,
and taking the best aspects of
previously opposing ideas.

ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS

ARE PHYSICALLY
DOCUMENTING
IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST
THROUGH PRINT AND
PATTERN.

Fossils of Barking is a project

from Royal College of Art
graduate Merel Karhof. The
Dutch designer took rubbings
and made moulds of the
surfaces in and around the UK
town of Barking. She then
transformed these images into
3D forms that were worked into
ceramic plates.
Karhof says: With [the plates] I
created an archive where the
prints are from and what the
history is around the pattern.
You can see the archive as a
different way of mapping the
city. The patterns can become
all different kinds of product.
Barking Library will use the
plates at an annual community
event where the local people
can eat from them.
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www.merelkarhof.nl

Obsessive collections of
historical detail are becoming a
new hobby, as well as product
development strategy.
Lesli Larson writes the Archival
Clothing blog. In her own words
she is: Obsessed with
austerity, build quality, durable
woollens, waxed fabrics [and]
long distance cycling
As we reassess the priorities of
clothing, such complete
immersion in detail, historical
context and functionality
becomes for many a liberating
way to look at fashion.
www.archivalclothing.com

Looking at anything - cities or

clothing - in incredible detail
opens up the possibilities for
inspiration that doesnt dwell on
just history.

CULTURAL OVERLAY
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In My Country by Daniel Stier

shows immigrants in their
traditional dress, posing in their
present environments.
Stier has pulled off the difficult
task of illustrating the cultural
displacement that in many cities
creates energy and edge.
The work is less about folk
heritage and more about the
effect of one cultural identity
pulled out of one context and
placed in another.
www.danielstier.com

In My Country by Daniel Stier

shows immigrants in their
traditional dress, posing in their
present environments.
Stier has pulled off the difficult
task of illustrating the cultural
displacement that in many cities
creates energy and edge.
The work is less about folk
heritage and more about the
effect of one cultural identity
pulled out of one context and
placed in another.
www.danielstier.com

We like this street shot from

Tokyo as a great illustration of
how to use this concept of
cultural displacement.

Its universal - wherever you are

you can make it work for you.
Mix up cultural details with no
folklore focus, while harnessing
the powerful opportunity for
storytelling. Use the high
contrast within design.

LEGACY
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MANIFESTOS, SLOGANS AND

GRAPHIC STATEMENTS ARE
BEING USED TO PLOT
TODAY'S NARRATIVES,
CREATING LEGACIES FOR
THE FUTURE.

DeadMau5 - I Remember
directed by Colin OToole is part
short film part music video, and
was produced in collaboration
with the brand Your Own
Clothing.
An older man talks to two young
men about how youth today
doesnt have a voice or belong
to a collective group with a
shared passion.
To illustrate his point he
explains the 10 commandments
of being a true raver, little
knowing that his young friends
have already been planning a
party of their own.
www.pulsefilms.co.uk
Its fascinating to see the idea of
legacy - in this case the rave
scene of the late 80s and the
political protest that represented
- being used as a narrative
thread by the new generation,
as they take it to the next level.

Rather than lamenting another

generation, its refreshing to see
a celebration of differences as
well as similarities. Leave a
legacy for the future or simply
put what you believe down on
paper - its the new sloganism.

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