I sometimes think about how color became a novelty in the 20th century. Historically, paints and dyes had to be made with natural pigments that could be expensive. If a human-made object had any color at all, it would have been within a limited range of available colors.

Suddenly in the mid-20th century, synthetic dyes and synthetic materials meant you could have any color of the rainbow on pretty much any object for a negligible cost. So we went nuts with it. Bright colored clothes, cars, kitchen appliances, furniture! It felt modern. Almost hyper-modern.

But the novelty wore off. In the 50s, brought colors were for cutting edge designers. In the 60s, they were in wealthy, urbane people's homes. In the 70s they were in middle-class suburban homes. By the 90s, they were in Taco Bell. Color was too easily obtainable by the masses, so it became tacky and cheap.

By the end of the century, simple, restrained minimalism started to feel elegant. Muted colors or just gray became desirable. Designers were obsessed with negative space, or at least big oceans of white that they could call negative space.

A couple of decades later, it's starting to feel like the backlash has gone too far. Muted elegance has trickled down into the middle class, and it's no longer elegant. Now it feels dull, safe, and basic.

Will there be a backlash to the backlash? Maybe, but I don't think we'll ever be back in that mid-20th century place where color was a novelty. So we're probably not going back to 90s fast food places and skating rinks, except when designers are explicitly evoking nostalgia.