Romance is Dead in Dutch Design

Just finished a piece for Eindhoven based publishing press Onomatopee, due out in the Autumn,  on the ‘death of romance in Dutch design’, still in editing stages but here’s an excerpt.

‘Is romance about preservation of ideals? Can it be argued that, somewhere along the line, design appears to have become a burden, an emotional debt? Are we over-cautious about preserving some latent form of sentimentality that currently bonds our analogue and digital worlds whilst systematically destroying nostalgia with ever decreasing lassoes? We round up concepts and ideas and herd them together, corralling them in easily searchable, bountifully accessible folders and sub folders, ready incase we ever need them – but what for? It seems to me that the current oft used phrase in the media of ‘content creation’ is the antithesis of creativity. ‘

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At the moment I’m busy trying to figure out the difference in my head between nostalgia and romance.  A sign I found in Amsterdam this week led the way…