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This is fascinating... but just a superficial nit about the website and what it puts across: As someone who spent half my life designing, illustrating and art d

This is fascinating... but just a superficial nit about the website and what it puts across: As someone who spent half my life designing, illustrating and art directing for brands, the choice to use anime style art as the theme for section headers is the exact type of decision I look for when reviewing portfolios that tells me a potential hire might know how to use image editing tools or be proficient in technical fields, but is not actually a designer; i.e. can create an image they "like" but lacks the knowledge and creative ability to synthesize subtexts in design and art history in original ways that are visually compelling but also create the right tone for a client. The choice of generated amime art implies its use on the page as mere decoration, rather than as a language of communication carefully selected to give viewers the right impression of the company. It argues for why diffusion models guided by engineers will not replace professional art direction anytime soon. No offense, this is a standard art crit I would give to any art student, or to anyone running a startup who had nonprofessional design.

user3939382 3y ago
To play devil's advocate, it could turn out that only 1 person needed to be persuaded by the art, some investor that ends up leading their next round, who happens to be an anime fan and now it was the right choice. > rather than as a language of communication carefully selected to give viewers the right impression of the company You could argue it gives the impression that the culture of the company is primarily technical, given that the technical and anime communities have a huge overlap.
- BarryMilo 3y ago
  At what level of ridiculousness do you stop debating? It could turn out that they were blackmailed into making that choice, or maybe it was the best-looking color palette on their old Nokia. At some point you have to be able to recognize that the emperor has no clothes, no matter what extenuating circumstances may have arised.
  - user3939382 3y ago
    Art is famous, or infamous, depending on your perspective, for not having a level where you stop debating it.
    - __loam 3y ago
      It seems kind of pointless to debate it in this context with someone who is giving their professional opinion.
      - user3939382 3y ago
        I’d say art is the one field where professional opinions are not the end of the discussion.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Your first hypothesis is completely valid, and it occurred to me that this decision could have come from the top - but it's also a red flag for me when one or two individuals in a client's upper management or worse, investors, inject themselves into art decisions by overriding choices presented to them by trained and experienced professionals they've presumably hired to that end. Those companies tend to also override other suggestions presented by employees or contractors in other areas. Which implies a management style that isn't utilizing its hired talent to full effect. As far as appealing to technical people who overlap with enjoying Anime, that would be a very specific decision that might be appropriate for a video game company or something, but even then it would have to be justified by having some actual connection to Anime culture. Otherwise it's sort of just appropriating a style... in the hope that some percentage of crossover exists between users, investors, and this subculture being heavily referenced. My theory is that no study was done on whether or to what extent that crossover existed here before choosing it as a theme, but if I'm wrong I'll eat my critique!
rickysahu 3y ago
Ha! We’re just trying to use the art to stand out from the rest of health tech which is quite boring. I get the target audience is not often into anime (Ive watched maybe 10 anime anything’s in my life), nevertheless it looks cooler than the “lobby people” on other websites, and I like to think, bc of threads like this, the selection of art has served its purpose.
- noduerme 3y ago
  FWIW - I think that's a great reason. Anything where the secondary, subconscious effects of the communication are considered and intentional is perfectly valid from my POV. It's part of my job to walk through these questions with clients who get attached early in brand development to certain themes or colors or typography, and they usually don't have an answer. But if it's like "we want to convey that we're too busy working on this amazing platform to worry about trying to look like every other digital biotech startup, most of whom use the same boring icon sets, so let's just throw out some fun subcultural art in the meantime," then your choice is well tuned to presenting the company culture you're trying to get across, and I withdraw my crit. In fact, I'd be overjoyed to hear that from any client.

user3939382 3y ago

To play devil's advocate, it could turn out that only 1 person needed to be persuaded by the art, some investor that ends up leading their next round, who happens to be an anime fan and now it was the right choice. > rather than as a language of communication carefully selected to give viewers the right impression of the company You could argue it gives the impression that the culture of the company is primarily technical, given that the technical and anime communities have a huge overlap.

BarryMilo 3y ago
At what level of ridiculousness do you stop debating? It could turn out that they were blackmailed into making that choice, or maybe it was the best-looking color palette on their old Nokia. At some point you have to be able to recognize that the emperor has no clothes, no matter what extenuating circumstances may have arised.
- user3939382 3y ago
  Art is famous, or infamous, depending on your perspective, for not having a level where you stop debating it.
  - __loam 3y ago
    It seems kind of pointless to debate it in this context with someone who is giving their professional opinion.
    - user3939382 3y ago
      I’d say art is the one field where professional opinions are not the end of the discussion.
noduerme 3y ago
Your first hypothesis is completely valid, and it occurred to me that this decision could have come from the top - but it's also a red flag for me when one or two individuals in a client's upper management or worse, investors, inject themselves into art decisions by overriding choices presented to them by trained and experienced professionals they've presumably hired to that end. Those companies tend to also override other suggestions presented by employees or contractors in other areas. Which implies a management style that isn't utilizing its hired talent to full effect. As far as appealing to technical people who overlap with enjoying Anime, that would be a very specific decision that might be appropriate for a video game company or something, but even then it would have to be justified by having some actual connection to Anime culture. Otherwise it's sort of just appropriating a style... in the hope that some percentage of crossover exists between users, investors, and this subculture being heavily referenced. My theory is that no study was done on whether or to what extent that crossover existed here before choosing it as a theme, but if I'm wrong I'll eat my critique!

rickysahu 3y ago

Ha! We’re just trying to use the art to stand out from the rest of health tech which is quite boring. I get the target audience is not often into anime (Ive watched maybe 10 anime anything’s in my life), nevertheless it looks cooler than the “lobby people” on other websites, and I like to think, bc of threads like this, the selection of art has served its purpose.

noduerme 3y ago
FWIW - I think that's a great reason. Anything where the secondary, subconscious effects of the communication are considered and intentional is perfectly valid from my POV. It's part of my job to walk through these questions with clients who get attached early in brand development to certain themes or colors or typography, and they usually don't have an answer. But if it's like "we want to convey that we're too busy working on this amazing platform to worry about trying to look like every other digital biotech startup, most of whom use the same boring icon sets, so let's just throw out some fun subcultural art in the meantime," then your choice is well tuned to presenting the company culture you're trying to get across, and I withdraw my crit. In fact, I'd be overjoyed to hear that from any client.