It’s a matter of personal taste, but I find the 74-year-old illustrations in The Function Of Colour In Factories, Schools & Hospitals, as scanned by the design and stationary mavens at Present & Correct, to be astonishing. Here’s one example:
and the rest are: here. And there’s a bit more context at Core77: here.
Part of the attraction is simply that they are well-made illustrations to prove a point, but style has moved away from this kind of interior and industrial design. What was once new becomes dated, regardless of any inherent value. Or, both better and worse, is so widely accepted that it becomes ambient and we no longer really see it.
