The danger with nostalgia as it relates to design, politics or just about any area where creative and critical thinking is required – is that it’s too often used as a means to escape the difficult work that comes with creating something new. When complex problems are at hand, the easy road is to point at the long arc of history and recycle solutions under some silly claim of everlasting omniscient righteousness on the part of those whose came before us.

The trouble with copying someone else’s answers is that while you might pass the test, you’re not any smarter. It’s easy to ditch the complex and challenging in favor of the “because I said so” and the “that’s how it’s always been done” – but that’s not the way to grow and prosper.

Dear Designer

Congratulations on understanding Call-to-Action. That button you made is fantastic, and I have no doubt that before you get home today your mom will have that fucker printed out and on the fridge. I commend you on creating a creative way to move the user from the landing page to the about us page. However, I would like to ask you a simple question: Now what?

Your pixel perfect design will make all the rounds, be featured on all the blogs, drooled over by all the people who drool over other people’s work, but it has a while to go before I call it great design. Great design doesn’t keep people on your webpage; it makes people turn off their computer, put on their shoes and get their buddies to move. And I mean now. What good are CSS 3 transitions if that is where the action stops? Your on-line presence should catalyze an offline presence. And I’m not talking about buying things – I’m talking about building things.

I’m not saying your textured background isn’t lovely either because it is. It really is. But I need more before I can call your design great. I can call it pretty. I can call it breathtaking. If it makes you feel better, I will even call it inventive. Build something compelling. Tell a story that makes people smile. Because your masterpiece of a website might be obsolete in 2 years. Or 2 months. Or 2 hours. Because new media can become old media before the video is done rendering and then what?

Even if you use the good paper, that real heavy stuff with the sparkles in it and then top the whole operation off with a half a dozen bows – the wrapping should never be more important than the present.