Whenever you’re creating a graphic for a historical or older subject, or just want to reflect the idea of it being historic in some way, there are a few tools that you can use to get the message across swiftly. Now, this doesn’t mean leaning into all-out extra squiggles on the ends of every letter of a logo, or using images of stained, old scrolls. There are many more subtle ways to relay a historic or classic theme in your design.
Historic Power in the Serif
One of the best places to see a whole host of graphic designs and font picks representing differen angles of appeal is an online slots library. Eye of Horus, Alexander the Great: World Conqueror, Vikings Unleashed Megaways, and especially Tarasque all want to immediately show users that they are historically themed slots. To do that, there’s the background image, but the first thing you see is the serif font of the logo.
As the name of the most famed typeface doesn’t suggest, Times New Roman is loaded with serifs because it’s considered a historical or classical font. This little edge on the ends of letter lines might not seem like much, and yet, it’s wildly impactful. Not only are there ties to historical writing, but a survey into the impact of a serif style revealed that people see serif fonts as relaying an academic, traditional, trustworthy, and classic kind of personality.
Further compounding the image of serif fonts as classic and historically tied is the rise of sans-serif fonts. Particularly when you look at modern tech logos, especially those from the big social media companies, the font is always much smoother and lighter. Fonts like Calibri or Arial, for example, make the letters softer, almost in defiance of the authority commanded by a serif font.
Draw from Vintage Designs
Fonts can only take you so far when you’re designing a full graphic. You may not be rolling all the way back to historic periods like that of Ancient Rome, but going back just several decades can offer some clues on how to approach a historic, legacy, or classic-themed task. Of course, vintage design isn’t just one thing, but there are plenty of ideas prevalent across many designs that still make people think of something as historic in some way.
Small images as part of the logo are quite a big one. The image above is somewhat restrained in this regard. Others, like The Bacon Brothers, featured a couple of sketched pigs, while Good Co. Seafood put their logo on top of a big crab. As well as little images to accent where relevant, you can use limited color schemes to make aspects more striking. Lean into a bold color matched with a tone to make the key part of the ensemble stand out.
Basic shapes are also fairly common in older graphic design works. Circles, diamonds, and hexagons can be used to frame the design or feature within to help draw the eye in a vintage way. Swirls, squiggles, and kind of ornate line work to build out the body and add more color also adds a classic edge. With this, you can let your theme guide the color used for this kind of filler pattern.
Serifs and drawing from classic design work are the clearest ways to showcase the historic or vintage theme behind your graphic. Of course, you can take these as the baseline and then give your own spin to make a much more targeted creation.
