It's Just Old Dammit

I swear to God if I hear one more reference to something being "retro" I'm gonna snap. Laugh all you want but this is starting to seriously annoy me. Instead of having an original thought we just seem to be revisiting old ideas under and passing it all off as "retro".

Cars, furniture, clothing, architecture, sporting goods, fashion accessories... hell even food have all come under the designers' pen and been re-un-styled as "retro".

It's getting boring.

The new term for retro is "old school"; made popular and annoying by the Teutel family of Orange County Chopper fame. I'm nearly at the edge with this one as well.

I think the shoe company Vans started this one. About 7 years ago I had a pair of Vans New School and Vans OldSchool. They were basically the same shoe with a different application of the Vans graphic. That was almost a decade ago. Let it go people.

What's the alternative? I don't know. Maybe a new word that we can toss about for a couple of years? Or, even better, give up this need to pull out the old blueprints and make a brand new 30 year-old item. Shoe some creativity and push some bourndaries. Nostalgia is great but it doesn't drive the future of design.