JOFTYWE

We invented an acronym for this post, because the same good thing keeps happening and it needs a name. Introducing the Joy Of Finding Things You Weren’t Expecting or JOFTYWE for short.

In this case it’s these little nuggets of nostalgia that live in some kind of crossover between graphic design, non-digital objects and materiality.
Above it’s the vintage matchboxes we found in a dusty second hand store in New Zealand, one of our last posts captured the cassette tapes from the shop in Abu Dhabi and in a more recent effort we’ve started collecting UAE postage stamps. We began pulling the thread of this world of graphic design again recently when we stumbled across the Tickets Please project online, capturing old ticket stubs from the days when concerts had physical tickets, QR codes weren’t a thing and you definitely didn’t purchase online.

You can check out Tickets Please by photographer Blaise Hayward here.
And here’s the original post by the Casual Archivist that captures the backstory in way better detail.

There’s something so pure and simple about printed ticket stubs. The fold marks, the faded paper, the graphic design, the way the style changes over the decades and the way that each ticket acts as a mini-poster for that show. And that’s not even opening the door of how amazing any of these concerts would have been to attend.

So here’s the question…
What’s the fascination with these little things that are disappearing or no longer exist?
Linear notes in CD’s, airline tickets, phone cards, telephone directories, city maps etc…

As the digital world conquers the need to print or physically make things is it swallowing the beauty of made objects?