“Nostalgia—it’s delicate, but potent.”
I have been rewatching AMC Network’s Mad Men, and Don Draper’s iconic monologue on the power of nostalgia was front-of-mind as Helms Workshop worked with Richard Peete and Wyatt Russell to channel their boyhood memories of summers on the Finger Lakes into the branding for Lake Hour. The brand story is as familiar as the feel of a well-loved and lived-in fishing cabin and as fantastical as a Hollywood biopic—Russel’s grandad repurposed his float plane to fly liquor for Al Capone during prohibition.
Terms like “nostalgia,” along with “heritage” are used in our industry to communicate a broad spectrum of ideas and aesthetics, from nods to the past through subtle context clues to the blatant appropriation of brand work from yesteryear. Getting nostalgia right is indeed delicate, and through this partnership, we found that it lives in the small details. It’s in the fluid curve of a letterform or the quirky combination of elements that aren’t technically “correct” but that somehow work together elegantly.
Big thanks to Chloe Gordon at The Dieline for the beautiful profile. Read it here.
