Not just technically but emotionally, culturally, visually? What becomes of a design once its job is done, once it’s no longer needed? So often, the answer is simple: it disappears. The poster comes down, the vinyl is peeled off, and the file is quietly deleted to clear space on someone’s computer.
That’s part of what I find so beautiful about graphic design. It’s selfless. It exists to serve: to guide, to attract, to translate, to entertain. It rarely demands credit. It lives in the background, doing its job and then stepping aside. But it is precisely that humility that can often render it disposable.
Graphic design is not cyclical like fashion, nor seemingly eternal like fine art or architecture. It is precise, situational and fleeting. An invitation to a moment, a voice for a season, a marker of a temporary space. When the purpose fades, so too does the design.
Still, some graphics stick around. A sticker on a lamppost, a shop sign, an old safety notice. We walk past them on the way to the supermarket or to a friend's house. They cling to street corners and withstand the slow erosion of weather and time. Their digital files may be long gone, but their physical forms persist, waiting to be seen in new ways by those who are paying attention.
Graphic Recovery is about noticing those remnants. It’s about seeing value in the discarded and giving these visuals another shot at life. Together with other designers who work with found imagery in unexpected ways, we want to give these one-time-use graphics a new voice, a new purpose and, naturally, a new file.