In Is Time Standing Still?, Oliver Reichenstein discusses the past's role in today's design.

• Used Mad Men Kodak Carousel pitch to explain what advertising is and how to use sentimentality to sell things.
• Mad Men promotes a sentimentality about the days of the past.
• Nostalgia is a thriving industry: Mad Men, Lana Del Ray, Amy Winehouse, etc
• Today's tech mimics the design of the past. For example, Apple's designs borrow heavily from Braun
• Analogies from the physical world (especially things like the trash can), when used appropriately, can really enhance a digital user experience.
• True innovation is actually just really really small steps. The only people that see the subtle changes are typically other professionals.
• iA Writer innovations - can't change type size, focus on one sentence at a time, a typeface that's scales well to many environments. It's hard to sell because it's not necessarily new and shiny.
• It takes time to innovate, it's hard to follow up on previous success.
• There's no such thing as 'big innovation'. It's a series of very very small step. The steam engine and light bulb were all actually incremental changes even though they're regarded as revolutionary.
• Skeumorphism is not good design. It's not that sometimes it's sometimes OK, it's always trying to bring the past into the present.
• If you try to imagine the future, you'll fail. If you try to recreate the past, you'll simply create a simulation. You need to create in the present. It's about finding the balance between borrowing from the past and looking towards the future.