The ad archivist: How objects from the past can fuel modern creativity

Over the past six months, in my role as CEO of Global Street Art, I have spent a lot of time thinking about inspiration. I got to a thought: agency networks are complicated. If you inspire the partners you work with, then you aren’t anyone’s competition; you’re their partner too.

Given we’re media owners and not a creative agency (though often people think we are), we wanted to connect with creative agencies to become their go-to ‘inspo partner’.

Objets d'inspo

To that end, I spent a lot of time developing a workshop inspired by my deep knowledge of the ephemera in our own gallery, with 100,000 vintage objects neatly filed away or tightly displayed. During workshops, I introduce concepts like ‘random object creativity’ and help people apply them, using our fun space.

The objects in our collection have helped clients come up with heaps of new ideas: some of them brilliant, some of them terrible, some of them downright weird. All of them welcome. Our rules of engagement help people work better in groups – ideas are developed instead of being shot down. It really works!

The past is like a toolbox for modern creativity, giving us old ideas to build on and make something new. Here are some of the insights and observations inspired by the objects here.

Matchboxes

Let’s start with a little gem that never fails to make visitors smile: our collection of vintage matchbox labels. We have many folders, neatly ordered by color, size, and alphabetically. Some of the folders in the collection are exquisite; there are very few things we own that we’d describe that way.

Some of the matchbox labels are for film advertising: tiny shrunken film posters the size of, and actually on, a matchbox label. When I look at these labels, I can’t help but draw a parallel to what we do every day at Global Street Art. We paint large-scale murals that, once photographed and shared on social media, are reduced to a matchbox size.

This reduction poses a challenge: if the mural doesn’t resonate scaled down, it won’t work well for social. The same way those vintage matchbox designers had to ensure their artwork still made an impact in miniature form, we need to consider how our murals will be consumed digitally.

Flickbooks

Our flickbooks are another small, easily overlooked collection in the gallery. These old-school animations are simple but fun, and they’ve sparked some modern ideas. For example, what if each page wasn’t just a static image, but a QR code that takes you to a different part of a digital story? Or imagine if each page launched a unique AR animation.

We haven’t had the chance to put this into practice yet but this kind of thinking, and attention to detail, inspired us to sneak in loads of games – word searches, crosswords, spot the difference, maxes, etc. – into the journals we give as company gifts.

And, toys

And then we have a quirky collection of vintage toys – many of which could be imagined blown up as a special build on a wall. Many of our apparent relics can be, directly, used as blueprints for these concepts.

These are some of my favorite and rather direct sources of inspiration from the objects in our gallery. When our partners come in and visit us, their ideas, and incredible variety thereof, always take me by surprise – inspiration works both ways!

Indeed, the objects in our gallery can be looked at as relics or sources of inspiration. They’re both at the same time, depending on your perspective. And your perspective can be inspired.