Just did an interview with David Eardley of Pink Essay / Design Heads where we discussed my product design series and the role nostalgia plays in my work!

You can check out the interview here.

I kept turning over the ideas we talked about in my head and I wanted to explore it a little further here.

Nostalgia is so appealing because it connects you to a different reality - the specifics of that reality and how closely it resembles an actual past that existed only matter in as much as they help make that other reality feel more vivid.

Work that references designs from your youth opens a bridge to a reality that feels vivid because you can remember it - you lived it. Once that bridge is open you and the design can project new and different feelings onto that reality. Maybe a design takes a real aesthetic that existed but exaggerates it, builds on it, adds new elements that haven’t been seen before - but the work still feels familiar because it’s grounded in something you can vividly remember.

Used cheaply retro aesthetics can be an escape hatch - an easy way to evoke something people remember fondly. Throw some nostalgia sauce on a basic design and it will immediately resonate with and comfort many people. I don’t think comfort in that way is bad but it feels stagnent, it’s not advancing anything.

Used with nuance a designer can take successful elements from past work and apply them to modern designs in a way that creates a bridge to a new reality - that reality still feels comfortable because it’s grounded in things that are familiar, but it can also evoke new feelings and push new boundaries.

I want to design work that feels modern but evokes nostalgia because I want to feel nostalgic about the present.