Nostalgia is design’s favorite drug. Every time a brand runs out of courage, they reach for the past. Retro logos. “Classic” rebrands. Campaigns drenched in vintage filters. They sell it as timelessness, but it is really fear — fear of making something new, fear of taking risks, fear of stepping into the unknown.

The problem with nostalgia is that it tricks people into believing they are feeling something authentic. But it is not authenticity. It is sedation. Nostalgia dulls the senses. It gives audiences the sugar rush of recognition without the bite of discovery. It tells them, “You’ve seen this before, and you liked it, so like it again.” That is not design. That is embalming.

The work that matters never looks backward. It doesn’t need to. It is too busy kicking the door open to the next decade. It offends the nostalgic. It makes people uncomfortable. It doesn’t remind them of what was. It forces them to deal with what is, and what could be.

If your portfolio is full of “throwback vibes,” you are embalming your own career. If your brand’s big idea is “retro,” you are telling the world you have no vision for tomorrow. Nostalgia sells because it is easy. But easy is poison.

The future does not belong to the sentimental. It belongs to the ruthless, the risk-takers, the ones willing to leave the past buried.

Nostalgia is poison. Pour it out.