In design, it seems as though everyone is always looking forward. What’s the latest trend? What’s the newest tool that will make your design look more contemporary, brighter, or sharper? Everything, seemingly, is about designing for the future, but what about looking back?
Like, way back.
Ilya Stallone, a Russian graphic designer, is fusing the (far) past and the present through Medieval Branding, a logo exploration he published on his Instagram account. Stallone thoughtfully selected ten modern-day brands such as Burger King, Playboy, and Starbucks and cleverly reimagined the logos as if they were from slightly more archaic times.
Each brand’s medieval logo takes the current look and feel but brings it back to when wheels were wooden, glass was beautifully stained, and typography existed gothically. Stallone thoughtfully crafted each design, and while entirely different than the modern-day logo, it’s still unmistakably from each brand.
Windows, for example, looks like an old stained glass church window, but the four colored squares are front and center in the design. Similarly, Burger King’s medieval logo showcases a burger-inspired sandwich with two undistinguishable patties and two of the infamous king’s heads sandwiched between two stale-looking pieces of bread with a crown on top.
So get a little medieval, folks! It’s thrilling to see design cleverly look to the past instead of towards the almighty future. It makes the world seem a little more playful and a lot less daunting—here’s to design looking back.
