… well, maybe not personally, but with a few weeks in Europe under my belt I’ve been pondering the visual richness and enduring influence of the European aesthetic. For example, one visual juxtaposition that keeps popping up is the combination of the ancient and the avant. These contrasting styles create a sort of cross-generational design competition that’s fascinating and, surely, exciting for a modern day designer.  The potential for viewers to compare your work with a renaissance masterpiece must provide plenty of motivation to create something beautiful and original.

Simple, colorful design is prevalent throughout Europe.. probably because it’s one of the clearest ways to communicate with a multilingual audience (more on this later).  However, again the contrast between the old and the new is vivid.  When you spend as much time as I did visiting historic sites and museums, viewing mosaics, neo-classical paintings, maestàs, ancient sculptures and ruins, your mind gets lost in a sea of ornate backgrounds and muted tones.  Bold, clean design provides a refreshing contrast and helps differentiate itself.

And besides that, simple design serves another extremely important purpose that’s much more utilitarian in nature.  Western Europe has… wait for it… 230 languages!  Sure, many are obscure, and English is a fairly common second language, but there’s still a great need for a common visual language.  This challenge has led to the invention of many clever symbols such as those below.