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Everything used to be less slick. Even huge store chains and brands look amateurish by modern standards, from as recently as the 90s. Some of it's explainable b
by handrous 5y ago
Everything used to be less slick. Even huge store chains and brands look amateurish by modern standards, from as recently as the 90s. Some of it's explainable by changing fashion making those things look worse, but most of it's just that less was designed, and expectations for how (say) a Wal-Mart's exterior (and interior, for that matter) would look didn't include the whole building being "on brand", to pick one example.
I think graphic design becoming much faster and cheaper, and elaborate custom-designed and custom-printed/manufactured signage, wraps, et c., becoming far cheaper to make, is part of the cause.
I also suspect much of this is a very visible case of Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs", specifically of the "zero-sum competition" variety—which makes sense, given the relation of this to marketing and ad-spending. I don't think Target having the entire facade of its buildings designed & built to be "on brand" does very much good of any kind, per se, nor do brand-driven price tag or end-cap sign designs and such, and the (apparently) increasing tendency to tear down rather than repurpose—I assume because making the old building fit your design system would cost about as much as building new, anyway, and if you build new you also get... a new building—sure seems socially harmful. However, they feel they have to, so they don't look shabby next to all their competitors.
- nsxwolf 5y agoI miss hand-lettered signs with misspellings and punctuation errors in carry out places. Now even the smallest mom and pop has professionally lettered signs and menus.
- matrixcubed 5y agoThankfully, I’ve seen greengrocer’s apostrophes survive that evolution of signage polish.
- willcipriano 5y agoThe UK is having gas shortages and I saw a article where one of the gas stations was pictured and they had a glossy, perfectly on brand sign explaining the situation. I was thinking that a couple of decades ago it would've been crazy to get those printed and distributed to stores in less than a week.
- gxqoz 5y agoOn the subject of changing tastes, I suspect that in 10 years anything in a corporate Memphis style [1] is going to look horribly amateurist and outdated. This shows up a lot more in landing pages and tutorials than ads, but I'm sure there are similar artifacts in ads these days. [1] https://en.communia.blog/corporate-memphis/ https://en.communia.blog/corporate-memphis/
- nostromo 5y agoIt already looks amateurish and outdated. Note how design-focused companies like Apple almost never use it. It’s mostly used by Facebook and Google, who aren’t know for sophisticated design.
- drewzero1 5y agoI seem to remember Apple already having used a similar style of art in manuals in the 90s. [1] [1] http://mattjfuller.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DSC_0702.jpg http://mattjfuller.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DSC_0702.j...
- bhntr3 5y agoThat link is a wild ride. I expected a design blog. Instead I got a communist indictment of startup culture through the lens of the commodification of illustration.
- King-Aaron 5y agoI see any brand that uses corporate memphis design as being slack and amateur. It's literally 2020's MS Clip Art.