ABSTRACT
Of all the valedictions to the 80s, perhaps none was so appropriate as the one published by Penguin in conjunction with iD magazine, entitled iDeas. And just as museums tend to become their own biggest exhibits (think of Stephen Bayley’s Design Museum, for example) so anthologies become their own biggest entries. But what this obituary to the decade had in common with all the others from less epochal organs was the central place given to ADVERTISING in its rememberance of things past.
If you wanted to know what was really happening in the 80s, you watched the ads. Paranoia about hidden persuaders took a back seat as ads were celebrated as a nonstop carnival of images which didn’t just sell, but also crystallised contemporary aspirations, fantasies, moods and fears 1
