Sean Pearl

Why does banality require aggrandizement? Why does coffee shop design tend to reference Parisian cafe culture? Why did hipsters get traditional tattoos? Why are designs with historical associations used for vignetting contemporary life? These things that are in reference to history are always an abstraction of history’s culmination. A mug with a tea bag tag hanging on its side could be a rudderless vessel with a black flag. The tempest in the teapot. Printed media takes on this historical framing, a printer is often role playing within the history associated to their given process. Printed media can also be useful for telling a story, and as a surrogate for the publishers voice, it leaves clues to their views, decisions, and lifestyle. It may be a close extension of a person, or a nearly detached entity. Printed pages, like footsteps in a cartoon, are unreliable ephemera that can make what is likely an empty existence magical. Pointing to daily life using fabricated approximations.