We collaborated with marketing partners iam8bit to create and design a set of four commemorative posters that will serve as giveaway items for each of the attendees of the 25th annual Game Developers Conference. The limited-edition posters are jam-packed with classic and modern video games references, a kind of scavenger-hunt that tromps through 40 years of video game history. More info on the posters and conference can be found here.

One of the great things about design is its ability to act as a window in time, for us to get a taste of what that era was like. If we’re old enough, those combinations of words and images conjure up powerful memories, associations and emotions. Great design does that.

And even if we weren’t around the first time, these designs give us some sense of what that world was like — the fashions, the typefaces of choice, trendy color palettes, the lingo and candor of the day. So, for your pleasure, I’d like to present more packaging examples of an era that has gone by, a decade of hi-fi cassettes, arcades, and the first generation of video games.

[Note: All these game box images were shot at Hexanine, and come from the nerdy collection of Tim.]