The subject of the paper is the derivation and analysis of evolution Galerkin schemes for the two dimensional Maxwell and linearized Euler equations. The aim is to construct a method which takes into account better the infinitely many directions of propagation of waves. To do this the initial function is evolved using the characteristic cone and then projected onto a finite element space. We derive the divergence-free property and estimate the dispersion relation as well. We present some numerical experiments for both the Maxwell and the linearized Euler equations.