Design trends, by definition, come and go. What’s super-hot right now may be incomprehensibly old-fashioned in a few years time. One thing you’ll hear a lot if you watch many home makeover type shows is the term “a bit dated.” Usually meaning that when you walk into a room, you get this instant sense that it was decorated in precisely 1978 or 1992. Although that’s something that we tend to see in a negative light (who doesn’t want to be surrounded by this season’s latest Pantone color picks or the coolest patterns?), it’s also a really important part of placing our memories at a point in time – giving context to our photos, and adding to that nostalgic feeling when we look back. There will come a time when we’ll have to explain to our grandkids that grey chevron and mismatched vintage was all the rage! Today’s post is actually inspired by this old family photo of me with grandfather at around age 4:

 

Amazeballs. From the brown velour to the floral wallpaper to the terrarium peeking out in the corner, every last detail of this screams that it’s from another time. I was completely inspired to document elements of design – be it things that we’re visually inspired by (hello, Pinterest) or things that we have around us – that will one day create that same nostalgic feeling by sparking a memory of what was ‘so hot right then’. Maybe because there are so many more places for us to access design inspiration, it’s easy to spot when everyone is talking about some new trend or style (I’m looking at you, gold foil!). I recently created this layout using the new Peccadillo collection from Dawn by Design (coming Friday 6 March) to remind me of the artsy, hipster design influences that we have added to our new nursery:

If you’re looking for ways to meaningfully incorporate current design influences into your memory keeping, how about these ideas:

• scrap a new, so-hot-right-now purchase, and explain why you wanted it
• scrap a collection of things you think define this time, such as a list of what you have on your desk, or the ingredients of a standard outfit for you at the moment
• coordinate scrap goodies with one of your fave design trends (for example, use an amazing floral like the one I’ve used above to document your obsession with floral fabrics)

Hopefully you’re inspired to consider where today’s design influences are most present in your life, and how you can document that. Don’t forget to hop on over to our challenge forum, where there is a design-trend challenge for 6 March.