Nostalgia

Maybe I'm in the mood for thinking of old times. I'm getting old enough to remember the past.

Once upon a time we had a nostalgia craze. We need a resurgence of nostalgia. Maybe we have it, we just don't call it that anymore. We have retro, throwback, and vintage.

Nostalgia fever hit the nation, I'm thinking around the year 1972. It was noted for Deco typefaces, something like the Broadway typeface that is on lots of computers. And a few others. It was a time -- maybe going along in some way with the "That's Entertainment" movies.

But I definitely remember seeing the word "nostalgia" back then all the time, a lot more than you see it now. Magazines covered it. Old movies were shown more often.

And, not coincidentally, that was when the whole "collectibles" and "collector's item" boom took off. Which led me to speak those immortal words, "If it's really a collector's item you don't need to put the phrase 'collector's item' on it. Collectors will know."

You may remember when Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life" album came out it had printed on the front "Collector's Album." I was at a flea market and this idiot dealer had records for sale. Let's say they were $1 each, just to make a point. This guy had the Stevie album like five or 10 times the price. I asked him why. He said because it was a "Collector's Album," since it said right on the front! I asked him why it was a collector's album and he said, "I don't know. Maybe he died or something."

Whatever Happened To Generic Stuff?

In the '70s there was a big boom in generic stuff, usually adorned with plain white packaging and plain black lettering. Cereal, pancake mix, I don't know about orange juice.

When it came to design, they definitely skimped on the cost. Maybe art and design expenses are where all the big expense is when it comes to products. I know I could use more of a stripped down approach when it comes to packaging electronics items, like battery rechargers. It's hard to get them opened.

But it seemed like as fast as generic-everything was on the market, within a couple years anyway, it was all gone. Then the closest thing to generic was the store brands. But even they don't just say "Raisin Bran" but come up with a name like "Always Save Raisin Bran."

I believe there was even a few records that did at least a take-off of the black/white generic craze. What they were, I don't know. Just plain old "Music," probably. Maybe someone out there has a large collection of generic packaging. It would've been a good idea. But I didn't think of it at the time. One thing, you don't expect it to go away.