Part three in this series of graphic design explainers nobody asked for – Picture Past is a recurring editorial series from @classicretromodern, the classic car magazine I design six times a year. 

I've given each recurring series its own distinct visual identity for a few reasons. Firstly, to help the reader to find their favourite bits of the magazine at a glance. Secondly, to set a consistent tone for each section, giving us the option to pull together a book of Picture Past, Reader Resto, Ignition or Driven features if we decide to do so. More importantly though, it was an opportunity to have fun and really think about the character of each series. Picture Past uses archive press photography to take the reader back to a specific time period and look at the cars, events and fashions of the day, and this journey into the past suggested a touch of psychedelia would be welcome. 

In my experience, psychedelia isn't tie dye patterns, lava lamps and being chased across the park by giant mars bars. It's surreal rather than totally unreal. It's a feeling of the familiar being slightly unfamiliar, of not quite being able to grasp the thing you're looking at despite it being right in front of you. A feeling that offers more questions than answers.

So, I turned to TV station graphics from my childhood (no surprises there), music, photography, and book covers that all play with the idea of the familiar but break things a little bit to suggest there's more than just a commercial transaction going on. If you're my age, you have probably seen the ATV logo countless times, but you've never seen it with an entirely superfluous extra eye stacked on top. You're no doubt familiar with John Lennon's face, but Bob Gruen's photograph from Walls and Bridges makes you question, for a second or two, which pair of glasses he's really looking through. I know it probably sounds like a pretentious approach to something simple, but that's the fun bit of the job so why skip past it and miss out on creating something with unnecessary depth, just for the sake of racing to the finish line? 

It's true, living is easy with eyes closed, but it's much more satisfying with your mind open.