Against Nostalgia: New ways to look at design history
Elizabeth Goodspeed
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Right now, the future of design is looking a lot like the past. Historic reference is everywhere in contemporary visual culture, from throwback rebrands to the resurgence of Y2K aesthetics and an obsession with all things “analog”. But as the past becomes common ground, how can designers avoid reproducing the same visual ideas over and over? Join Elizabeth as she looks at how designers can move beyond trend-driven references toward a more specific and intentional engagement with visual history. Drawing from her work across branding, publishing and writing, she explores how attention to context, tools and labour, rather than aesthetic style alone, can lead to clearer and more resonant design decisions. By framing archival research as an active practice rather than a stopgap, she offers ways for history-curious designers to sharpen their eye and make work that feels grounded in the past without defaulting to nostalgia.
Elizabeth Goodspeed
Elizabeth is the U.S. Editor-at-Large for It’s Nice That, where she writes a popular monthly column on graphic design. Her writing on design history and visual culture has appeared in Fast Company, PORT, The Architect’s Newspaper and Eye on Design. Her criticism and commentary have been cited in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dwell, CNN, Eater, Vox and Business of Fashion, among other publications and media outlets.
As a designer, she works independently across brand identity, editorial and art direction projects, often drawing from archival research and visual history to inform contemporary design systems and print work. Her clients include A24, Herman Miller, Phaidon, HBO and The Whitney Museum, as well as design studios like Pentagram, Interbrand, Mythology and Porto Rocha.
She publishes Casual Archivist, a newsletter about ephemera, and teaches at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Parsons. In 2024, she was selected as a Young Guns winner by The One Club for Creativity.
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