The role of the archive: How solutions are arrived at in an online workscape

Not only does digitality open up possibilities for the democratization of the archive, with less reliance on size and scale of storage facilities in remote warehouses across the country, but once democratized, new uses can be found for the records of the past. As a result, this chapter centres on two primary purposes: to examine how the history of advertising can be brought to new audiences in the present and in so doing expand the range of responses to the seasonal question of ‘what is advertising for?’ Furthermore, it will explore the role of the archive in shaping contemporary creative ideas. In both cases the archive itself is positioned as a workspace that is worked upon and utilised to craft new visions in the working lives of creative professionals. However, as the case study of the development of Ad Memoire will reveal, the history of advertising can perform an unlikely function only made possible through digitisation. This then allows us to examine another, perhaps less explored question: ‘Why the history of advertising matters and to whom?’

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