Nostalgia, a yearning for the past, is a familiar feeling to all. Hazy memories have the ability to evoke joy, or sometimes despair, but regardless, nostalgia for the past is a consistent catalyst for present day imagination.
For independent designer, art director, writer, and educator Elizabeth Goodspeed, a connection to the past has played a pivotal role in her life and career. With over 10 years of experience in the design industry, Elizabeth has crafted a reputation for expressive work that draws on an extensive knowledge of design history and archival designs. Her work as a designer encompasses branding, packaging, book and editorial design.
Her latest project The New Antiquarians plays with the blend of archival influence through a 21st century lense. Elizabeth worked with the team to craft the full visual world for the book, evidence that her impact spans far beyond the realms of design itself.
Elizabeth spends her time between New York City, and Providence, Rhode Island. In the past two years, she also found herself teaching design to students both at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Parsons School of Design.
In Elizabeth's own words.
From the archives
You're a self-described casual archivist. What's the value in (re)discovering the old?
I think some of the initial impulse for getting into archival work definitely came from a bit of insecurity early in my design education–I was in a dual degree program in college (studying cognitive science and graphic design simultaneously at two different schools) which often left me feeling like I wasn’t smart enough for science or creative enough for art. Looking at design history felt like a way to check the work I was unsure about against proven design solutions; if this layout worked for Massimo Vignelli or Paula Scher, it would work for me, too!
I also think there’s a significant emotional bent to it as well: I think I experience nostalgia more than other people, and tend to feel pretty emotional about the past. As a result, I find that I’ve always really valued having tangible artefacts (pictures, letters, books) that connect me to the past very literally—archiving is another part of that. Even more simply, one of the things I love most about archival work is how much the past surprises me! I am always finding new approaches that seem ahead of their time, or that look differently than anything I have seen in our contemporary landscape.
To me, being an archivist is equal parts pulling ideas together and picking them apart: it’s about creating new and unexpected adjacencies from existing materials, and also taking the time to critique and analyse all the components within these materials to figure out what makes them work, why they were made, and who made them.
How does being an archivist make you a better art director?
I think being an archivist—which is to say, spending a lot of time with different things from different time periods—has caused me to be very aware of the many art direction tropes that have emerged in the advertising world over time, and therefore, has made me very aware of how much I want to play towards or against those tropes when I am creating new imagery. Similar to how all music is made up of the same 12 notes, I think that to some extent, all visual culture plays off the same set of general high level ideas, executed with different technologies (which become tropes in themselves) and in new contexts over time. These ideas, some conceptual, some aesthetic, tend to cycle in and out of fashion. Those ideas can be anything from the way props are used in a shot (like playing with prop scale, either big or small) to different compositional tricks (like fisheye or macro) to quirky lighting treatments (like silhouetting or dramatic gradient lighting)—all of which also have secondary associations with the periods when they were used, or the categories they were used for.
In a good and bad way, this kind of thinking has almost broken my brain a bit such that I often view the process of creating imagery as a process of determining what combination of existing ideas or gimmicks from the past will be most apt for the project—what this means for how I make work is that I’ve sort of assembled a big toolbox of different ideas that I can deploy when appropriate for any new brief I encounter.
Lessons taught and lessons learned
You teach at Parsons and RISD. What's the single most important thing for you to remember when "teaching" design? What do you often forget?
I’ve only been teaching for a little over two years it all still feels pretty new to me! That said, one thing I do try to remember is that I only am seeing a small part of every student’s life when we’re in the classroom; This class is just one part of their overall education, and their education (or graphic design in general) is just part of what makes them who they are. As such, I try not to take anything too seriously. In the working world, if someone is sick or dealing with personal issues, we (should) give them a day off or an extension—why isn’t that true in education? This extends to effort as well: I’d love for students to care about the work, but my yelling at them or chastising them won’t make them care more. Instead, I just try to share and model why I’m excited about the subject and hope it rubs off on them.
What I find easy to forget sometimes is what it’s like to be a beginner, and how absolutely frustrating it is to have ideas that you aren’t yet able to execute to the level of your imagination. One way I’ve found to remind myself is by critiquing student work as it is, but always giving students the chance to explain their vision, or bring in supporting materials like sketches or found references to show the idea they had in mind—even if they don’t yet have the technical skills to execute it.
What should design schools be teaching more of? What can't ever be taught?
I am amazed by how little design school teaches about the practical, business-minded side of design. I think it’s really easy to forget that at its core, design is a client-based, service industry. We are professionals working with others to solve problems—a very different structure than the fine arts. I have so many students, especially now in our sort of crazy economy, who want to start freelancing, but have not been given any information about how to make a scope of work, how to invoice, how to save for taxes, etc. I do, of course, deeply understand the value and importance of design school being a place safe from all the trappings of capitalism, and I don’t mean to suggest we should focus on a pedagogical approach that is purely pre-professional, but I do think we could serve students better by being slightly more supportive when it comes to some of the practical needs of being a designer in the world.
One thing I think can’t really be taught is having a unique point of view. We can definitely teach in a way that encourages students to trust and listen to their point of view, but we can’t invent it for them. At the risk of putting down pure aesthetic skill, I do sort of feel as though all of us have equal potential to become technically competent at the craft of graphic design with enough effort and time to learn—but no amount of experience can make up for the perspective and different personal insights that each and every person can bring to a project.
Finish this sentence. To be a graphic designer, you need to remember ___ and forget ___. To be an art director, you need to remember ___ and forget ___.
To be a graphic designer you need to remember what excites you and forget your inner critic.
To be an art director you need to remember your audience and forget what you’ve seen before.
Sourcing inspiration
What comes first to you: words or visuals? When do you think in words vs visuals?
Words first. I often joke that I’m a designer who thinks like a writer (or, a writer who accidentally became a designer). To be even more specific, I’d say spoken words first; I’ve always been very verbal and do most of my thinking through talking and conversations, rather than an internal text-based monologue. I actually learned recently that there’s a condition called “aphantasia,” which is the inability to form mental images or pictures in your “mind's eye”—and while I’m not quite there, I’m certainly close to it in terms of my poor ability to visualise or imagine things in my head (my mental depiction of an apple is somewhere between a symbolic dingbat or a photo seen in a very dark room.)
So, words absolutely come first for me. Then, I spend a lot of time working to determine what visuals will best convey those words or concepts. That isn’t to say that I don’t have any visual inclination, only that because I can’t really picture things well inside my mind, I often have to generate themes or concepts first to guide my visual ideation. For example, I may decide I want to make something that feels like a blend of Y2K and 1980s aesthetics, and then I’ll work to source references until I’m able to make something that feels like the idea I wasn’t quite able to actually see in my own brain. I think this has given me a unique perspective on design as it means that a lot of my visual exploration happens outside my head, on paper, with a lot of pre-existing references, rather than in my own mind first.
When it comes to banking inspiration/ideas, is more always better?
Definitely not! I’m a strong believer that less is more (kind of). I also think it’s not about how much you look at stuff but when you look at it and how you do so. As designers and artists I believe we should constantly be absorbing as much as possible from the world around us—art, pop culture, literature, design, nature, music—and letting it marinate in our minds to create a general tapestry of all the different ways that ideas can manifest. On the other hand, I think when actually starting a brief, looking at too much of other work can be quite restrictive, and in fact limit us to a certain preconceived solution before we even have the chance to ask questions.
When are you looking vs searching for inspiration?
Similar to how I think you should look at a lot of stuff casually, and only a few things strategically, I think I am always looking for inspiration, or rather, inspiration is always finding me. No matter where I go, there is always at least one interesting sign, architectural motif, beautiful leaf, or unexpectedly well-dressed person! The trick for me is figuring out how to remember or “store” these little moments of excitement that I find so that they’re ready for use when I’m actively searching for inspiration. This can be logistical, like actually taking a picture of the thing on my phone to reference in the future, or more fluffy, like trying to tap into the mood of being inspired when I am really not feeling a project.
Spotting trends: is it an active or passive activity to you?
It’s funny, I don’t know if I really ever sought out to keep track of trends—I think fortunately (or unfortunately) I have the kind of brain that is deeply and inexorably pattern-seeking, which means trends kind of find their way to me! Usually the process of “spotting” starts passively, just because I happen to notice that I have seen the same motif in a few places. But once I see, say, at least six or seven of a certain concept, it becomes a bit more active and I’ll make a folder of examples on my computer or Are.na that I’ll add to as I come across more cases. I usually give the trend a (dumb) name around this time, too.
Even though I have a natural inclination towards it, I do think anyone can be a trend-spotter. It just requires being, or becoming, someone who pays close attention to the world around them and is confident enough to make predictions based on what they see. Whether this is done just through instinct, as in someone who spots similar things easily, or more through practice, I think it’s mostly a matter of being interested in the space and working to make it happen.
Off the Cuff
What scares you more? A blank on-screen canvas (Photoshop), a blank page in your sketchbook, or a blank Google doc?
A blank google doc! I’ve developed a lot of helpful ways to bootstrap visual brainstorming for design projects over the years but I have yet to come up with the same supportive strategies for writing—writing professionally is something I fell into a bit accidentally, and as a result, my process is still a bit touch and go. I usually start with a bunch of piecemeal bullet points that I eventually group into sections that eventually become paragraphs, but outside of that, starting a new piece always feels a bit terrifying to me.
Mental blocks: what does your mind look like?
My brain works like a hummingbird, or maybe more like a crow; it’s constantly jumping between different tangents and finding little jewels to pick up—but it’s not very good at staying focused on one thing for a very long time.
You're hosting a dinner party and can invite anyone: who would be your top 3 guests? What would the topics of conversation be, if you can't talk about design?
Ah! This is a hard one. I definitely have a lot of interests outside graphic design, but I’m not sure how well some of my different idols would enjoy each other’s company...
I suppose I would want to invite some of my favourite writers. I think Anne Rice, queen of goth, would probably be the most fun at a party. My absolute favourite designer of all time is John Alcorn, so I couldn’t resist asking him to join as well—I don’t think it would be a problem for him to get along with a crowd without any other designers, given that he was such a multi-talented thinker and had a wicked sense of humour. Lastly, (if allowed) I would want to invite my own grandma, who is my namesake, but back when she was my age. She died before I was old enough to really get to know her well, but I’ve seen a lot of photos of her and letters that she wrote when she was in her twenties and thirties and I get the sense that she was an incredibly smart and funny person.
Find Elizabeth Goodspeed on Instagram, or visit her website. Elizabeth also curates a newsletter of found imagery and ephemera titled The Casual Archivist.
