Current Events > the corporate art style

(+) Yeah! (+)

the fingers look like penises for god's sake, and i love how the complete fucking hack put the hand the wrong way on the bottle
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/5/AAOjRaAAE2sJ.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

Honestly I kind of hate it too, I wish they would move on from that art direction already.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/9/AAYdjcAAE2sN.jpg

Corporate Botero

It's just so damn ugly even on just a surface level. Even if it wasn't being used by corporations to appear hip, fun, and less evil, I'd hate it.

Mother fuckers think we can afford food.

I like it. Blows away the "person smiling directly at the camera in a well lit billion dollar office" that usually takes up the space.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/9/AANKsdAAE2sX.jpg

The person who threw that together gets paid 200k/yr and works less than 15 hours a week

pogo_rabid posted...

The person who threw that together gets paid 200k/yr and works less than 15 hours a week

If the art isn't coming from a major design firm, chances are it's outsourced and done by people who are paid practically nothing. Corporate Memphis is largely so widespread because of how cheap and fast it is to make. You can effectively reproduce the style while not only not having any artistic training but simply by using the custom shape tool on Illustrator/Photoshop and having surface level knowledge of color theory and typography.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It's frustrating how we haven't really seen any interesting new design aesthetics. Neumorphism is a rare exception but it hasn't taken off since it requires more skill to produce than the generic flat design we've had since 2013-2014. I feel a huge roadblock is the fact that Zoomers and Gen Alpha are becoming increasingly tech literate while also only having experience seeing flat design. The times we've seen new design motifs from them it's almost always them awkwardly and incorrectly appropriating existing aesthetics.

I feel like such a fraud working as an inhouse designer and not knowing enough to hold discussions on topics such as this . . .

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Trying to make sense of it all delves into the whole "capitalism ruined everything" argument. I feel a huge reason why digital design aesthetics have remained stagnant is because we've culturally went from viewing consumer technology as something to assist us to viewing consumer technology as simply being a means to consume content. If you have minimalist, inoffensive, out-of-the-way interfaces it keeps users focused 100% on consuming content. I remember using OS X Leopard and losing my shit because of how the dock was reflective, or using a previous iOS' music app which had skeumorphic volume knobs which reflected light based on the angle you held your phone. Why bother making an interesting, aesthetically pleasing design elements if people are just going to be scrolling and flipping through "content"?

The only way things might change would be if we radically change how consumer technology is used, or how we view it. Virtual/mixed reality would force us to change how we view design as we'd have to incorporate spatial elements into things but the enthusiasm for VR came and went. Apple's realityOS design is interesting but in today's economy nobody's going to be able to afford it until several generations down the line. I think the only way things will really change is if we somehow move past the current trend of constantly being inundated with media and social media, but even then you can't undo that.

The only change we can make to the current status quo is effectively moving backwards and incorporating less frequent use of technology and media consumption into our lives but that's just impossible.

After all the discussion about how Fromsoft games need an easy mode, I'm really surprised that more people aren't here in support of accessibility for stupid people.

I like the fruitger alot.
Not sure why, but it just feels free

Turbam posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/9/AANKsdAAE2sX.jpg

I think I would like this style if I saw more of this.

It's so inoffensive that it circles back around to being offensive. Ironically, I get the impression that it's a mishmashed appropriation of genuine art styles.

TheNextLink posted...

I feel like such a fraud working as an inhouse designer and not knowing enough to hold discussions on topics such as this . . .

Eh, I'm kinda in the same boat: I work as an in-house graphic designer with a BFA in painting but no direct graphic design schooling, and am largely self-taught on Photoshop. But I'm sure that, like me, you're being too hard on yourself. You probably know a lot more than you think on an intuitive level even if you can't exactly articulate it in discussion, and I'll bet you underestimate just how little the vast majority of your coworkers understand or care about art and design.

Turbam posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/9/AANKsdAAE2sX.jpg

Also, this made my day, thank you.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Before they adopted flat design Apple was so particular about UI design you would constantly run into small details that went unnoticed even months into routinely using a device. Scott Forstall was so insistent on this philosophy that he would use a jeweler's eyepiece when reviewing UI/UX design.

It really showcases the change in status quo. Apple's current philosophy is simply keeping users in their ecosystem and being inundated with content, so a lot of the previous charm to their design has gone out the window. The previous philosophy was simply "make software easy and fun to use".

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

A big roadblock might be the growing cynicism people have towards media and advertising. There's plenty of instances of websites and online/video advertisements using design and typography motifs that are pretty creative but just using myself as an example, even as a Millennial I'll see some of this and immediately go "yeah, they're desperately trying to pander to Zoomers". If you play it safe and stick with the status quo, you're damned. If you try to do something different, you run the risk of being viewed as inauthentic and cringe. If we ever got a contemporary analog to something like the Grunge movement, people might dismiss it as tryhard. It very clearly comes off like me just being cynical and like I'm an old man yelling at the new generation but there are so many fundamental problems facing Zoomers and Gen Alpha that I think they all intersect and bleed into how so many of them are creatively stifled and how they view technology.

As far as online/digital aesthetics go I'm optimistic about the idea of online decentralization. People are becoming increasingly fed up with so much content being relegated to increasingly shitty megacorporations so we might see a true successor to Web 2.0 down the line. Imagine a platform like OG MySpace where each person (or brand's) presence felt like its own unique website.