Nostalgic design

Technology, in its essence, is cold and inhuman, like the present we are living in. We use it to optimise the efficiency of our activities, but we often leave no room for joy or enjoyment. Faced with this, and at a time when we interact more and more with different user interfaces, a trend emerges, or rather re-emerges, that seeks human warmth, nostalgia and authenticity in what surrounds us, evoking past times that seem better.

Once again we see eighties and nineties aesthetics, Vaporware and Lo-Fi styles, which show that longing to go back to calmer, quieter times, to live at a different pace.

In contrast to eccentricity, the everyday stands out. We want designs that amplify our lives; we seek warmer, closer experiences. Visually, this translates into colours and textures from the analogue world and simple, careful compositions, with special attention to small details. This trend is linked to ambient computing, the idea of using devices without being aware of doing so.

Just as things begin to settle, new changes burst in that do not let society get used to them and create new traditions. If there is one thing we learnt in 2020, it is that things are not going well. Hence the need to dig out the good things of the past and bring them into the present…

Perhaps this desire to return to our roots is the result of the constant change in our postmodern society, which stops new ways of life from taking hold, as a result of the acceleration we are living through.