2025 Poster Session

The mid to late 1900s was an era of innovation for pop culture, politics, and technological advancement, especially within communication. Among the new communicative tools was the thermal fax machine, which converted digital documents to physical copies by applying heat to heat sensitive paper (thermal paper) and became a key method of correspondence that enabled text and images to be received – all prior to the advance of email. Over the years, cultural heritage institutions have collected boxes of this substrate to preserve history and culture of various individuals and groups of the time. Despite its popularity, thermal paper has a caveat. Over time, the text and images on the paper fade, at times, erasing important information, and posing a challenge to many institutions on what to do with the blank documents. Fortunately, accessible, and low-barrier-to-entry, multispectral imaging systems possess the features needed to undo the damage from fading and reveal what the information on these documents were. One of these systems that has the ability to accomplish these results is MISHA. MISHA (Multispectral Imaging System for Historical Artifacts), uses 16 wavelengths of light, from the ultraviolet to the infrared, to uncover faded, damaged, or unknown texts, and illustrations on various material types, including thermal paper. At the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the MISHA team has worked closely with the Vignelli Center for Design Studies (VCDS) to image their thermal paper and reveal the content initially on them before the text and images faded. This collection contains the artifacts, designs, and correspondence of Italian designers Massimo and Lella Vignelli, who were well known for their design of the map for the New York City subway system, as well as the logos for American Airlines and Ford. Their collection at RIT is vital for the preservation of late 20th century design, and to show a successful example of text and image recovery of thermal paper, and showcase the process for the recovery so that other cultural heritage imaging labs may repeat it to help their own or other cultural heritage institutions in the area. This will give an overview of the VCDS, explore what collections they have, and show how the text and imagery on thermal paper was a valuable tool for the Vignelli’s creative process, and why it is important to restore it. It will also discuss what MISHA is, and how accessible multispectral imaging systems can help organizations preserve their degrading thermal paper, and other documents, without losing their historical context to time. Successful case studies like this help the MISHA team continue to grow and develop as they help cultural heritage institutions continue to tell the stories about their collections, and the team develop best practices for working with different material types, and strategies to more efficiently capture and process cultural heritage objects.