[HN Gopher] Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis
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Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis
Author : dehrmann
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-05-10 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.co.uk)
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I think that the aim of this style is a type of corporate PR, to
| give off a safe, unoffensive feeling.
|
| I then think that this feeling is intended to preempt the user's
| knowledge that the company is doing unethical things. Either
| environmentally, or with the user's private data, or otherwise.
|
| A good example is Google, (see some corporate memphis here,
| https://blog.google/technology/health/when-it-comes-mental-h...),
| who needs to project this image in order for you to feel safe
| while sharing your most private details with the company.
| vitili wrote:
| Reminds me of this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFb7BOI_QFc
| sound1 wrote:
| Very close to a racist video, this :) But as a colored person,
| it is just a cultural difference. People just associate certain
| things with skin color, and depending upon geographical
| location it can be an advantage or a disadvantage. I was in
| Greenville SC and they were the warmest people I ever met, but
| yeah they took their own time to let me in :-)
|
| (if you must ask it was the farmer's market)
| randylahey wrote:
| I too thought of this video and it is what introduced me to
| this particular form of "art". It's a good critique.
| edgartaor wrote:
| I feel this style have the same infamous reputation as Comic Sans
| font. It isn't a bad style, it's just overused.
| quelsolaar wrote:
| I think its interesting that the flat look was pioneered by
| Microsoft going back to the days of the Zune2 and later lumia
| phones that had the first Metro interface. Then google and Apple
| and everyone else started following. People don't think of
| Microsoft (and especially Zune...) as a leader in design, but I
| think they have had a big impact on the industry, and deserves
| some recognition.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's certainly Metro-influenced, but one wishes the real deal
| Metro came back.
| bitwize wrote:
| After Windows 95 came out, fucking everyone used Franklin Black
| in their advertisements. I saw it everywhere -- online, on
| billboards, in television advertisements. Microsoft may have
| the aesthetic tastes of a lame, "greetings fellow young people"
| dad, but they _were_ the biggest name in the tech field... and
| that meant people copied their design language in the hopes of
| seeming equally big and important.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| TFA wrongly credits Apple with the flat trend.
| hbosch wrote:
| You don't get credit for being the first, you get credit for
| being significant. Zune and Windows Phone didn't get "people"
| into flatter aesthetics, Apple did.
| Lammy wrote:
| I think you can probably trace some influence even further back
| to webTV. Check out its flat "10-foot UI" from 1999:
| https://youtu.be/eHJN9cMo4P4?t=156
|
| Microsoft's UltimateTV set-top-box hardware group got folded
| into the Xbox division in 2002:
| https://www.mrt.com/news/article/Microsoft-to-Eliminate-TV-D...
|
| And then in 2006 (per Wikipedia), "Xbox 360 overseer J Allard
| ran the [Toshiba Gigabeat 1089] project, codenamed 'Argo',
| staffed with Xbox and MSN Music Store developers who worked on
| 'Alexandria', finalized as Zune Marketplace."
| sidpatil wrote:
| > Check out its flat "10-foot UI" from 1999
|
| That doesn't look flat whatsoever. There are plenty of three-
| dimensional layout elements in that UI.
| Lammy wrote:
| Are you currently ten feet away from a fuzzy 24" consumer
| CRT television?
| motohagiography wrote:
| The point of these design languages is to affect a sense of
| power. One of the funniest versions of this was 1990's tech
| aesthetic that was pure (Italian) Futurism, without any sense of
| irony about its origins.
|
| Corporate Memphis looks like a variation of it. There is a word I
| can't seem to find, and it's for when you take a font or an image
| and round it to make it seem softer, safer, and less assertive,
| and so-called "feminine." The Corporate Memphis designers have
| essentially taken the aesthetics of both futurism and "Naive
| Art," to create this new language of patronizing global banality.
| It's not about adding or emphasizing diverse elements, it's about
| homogenizing them, which captures the whole purpose I think.
| dexwiz wrote:
| I saw a piece in a SF-based Italian art museum that was four
| panels, each with about 20 small cubbies. In each cubby was an
| individual abstract, brightly painted wood shape (carving?). If
| you squinted even a bit, it was indistinguishable from a list
| of modern corporate logos. Not the same as futurism, but I
| could see the artistic lineage.
| defen wrote:
| > There is a word I can't seem to find, and it's for when you
| take a font or an image and round it to make it seem softer,
| safer, and less assertive, and so-called "feminine."
|
| I don't know the word either, but this reminds me of the
| concept of "elevator music"
| cm2012 wrote:
| I do a ton of direct response ad creative. Generally stock photos
| work really well if chosen with care, but brands shy away from
| them due to perceived cheapness. Their loss.
| nostromo wrote:
| It's largely driven by corporations trying to be as broad and
| inoffensive as possible.
|
| Not sure what skin color to use? Make them blue. Are your
| depictions of humans too thin, or too ableist? Make them
| misshapen blobs so nobody can tell. Not sure how to include non-
| binary representation? Just make them all genderless.
| Lammy wrote:
| I just think of it as "Doug, but everyone has elephantiasis"
| https://i.imgur.com/LMqi9fp.png
| userbinator wrote:
| It's so inoffensive that it has become offensive to me, with an
| "evil megacorp" association.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| There used to be true artistry and celebration of beauty in
| corporate advertising. Look at the works of Toulouse-Lautrec
| or Alphonse Mucha. But no college kid is going to be putting
| up posters of these misshapen flat people in their college
| dorm.
| echelon wrote:
| This is so bland and dystopian. Mutated blob people make me
| hate interacting with corporate products.
|
| If you're going to do this, at least use creativity. Discord
| does a fantastic job of being inclusive and yet creative.
| genericone wrote:
| Corporate culture has deemed it a better tradeoff to be
| called uncreative than to be called k-ist or j-phobic. Most
| of these people just want to do their jobs and go home at the
| end of the day, not thread the political needle at great
| expense if it goes wrong.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| This is from January, there's other articles around mentioning
| this trend
|
| Here's another angle: It's Killing Brands
| https://www.aleksandrhovhannisyan.com/blog/blue-people-illus...
| bentcorner wrote:
| Similarly: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-
| gangley-armed-...
| axguscbklp wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of the infamous Grubhub ad that came out a few
| months ago[1] - similarities include the color scheme, the
| checklist approach to racial diversity, and the attempt to
| project generic inoffensive "fun". The Grubhub ad, at least, is
| so bad that it's entertaining.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-T3qKl6y-c
| olivermarks wrote:
| A lot of the reason for these design trends is that no one has
| the courage to think differently, so you get huge numbers of
| companies all looking virtually identical.
|
| It's a bit like 'nobody gets fired for buying IBM/McKinsey'
| etc...no one challenges product managers and marketing when yet
| another adobe illustrator generated Memphis style brand identity
| & UI is unveiled, complete with multi cultural inclusive visual
| banality. At some point this will suddenly be deader than an
| animated gif of a flame and the next trend will quickly become
| ubiquitous.
| lwhi wrote:
| I think it's more ultitarian than that. Companies have
| traditionally got what they need by using these conventions.
|
| Hopefully that will change, because it sure is boring.
| thisCtx wrote:
| When I'm trying to do computer tasks, I want to get them done,
| not decipher some design wonks metaphor and hyperbole.
|
| You want thinking different? Try trotting out a line that
| doesn't start out like an old man pissed at them kids for not
| being as competent as folks were "back in his day."
|
| The whole point of modern logistics is to simplify them so we
| can maximize time for ourselves instead of flogging the profit
| chant of last generations rubes seeking Valhalla.
| Guest42 wrote:
| I wonder perhaps too if the more prestigious resumes start
| coming from companies that embrace these trends, further
| reinforcing them across industry.
| mbesto wrote:
| > "From a design point of view, it's pretty lazy," says Hurley.
|
| I love designers criticizing design used for business. It rarely
| incorporates any perspective on business objectives. As long as
| the design is achieving its goal then who cares?
| asperous wrote:
| Because they are professionals. Software engineers, lawyers,
| doctors... skilled people who have creative control often put
| pride into their work as a means of expressing their talent and
| enthusiasm, even if it doesn't make a direct tangible
| difference.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Who cares is the people who have to experience the design which
| doesn't stand on its own (i.e. customers or users).
| coding123 wrote:
| Someone sent this around a few weeks ago - it's a lot more
| harsh/critical:
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/15/a-primer-on-corporate...
|
| > Merrill: I think Facebook is probably the biggest example of
| it. They went through a phase where they were using this style
| universally. And, you know, they are one of the darkest companies
| as far as how they're using that customer data. And it is all
| about this idea of, "Trust me. I'm a trustworthy company." And
| let's not look behind the curtain and see what's actually going
| on. So I think it's a really nefarious way to hide behind visual
| language.
| nescioquid wrote:
| My immediate thought was of rhetorical training in the ancient
| world. On the one hand, training in rhetoric will help you
| persuade, and on the other, will also help you become aware
| when someone else is using those techniques.
|
| One of the five parts of rhetoric was called "ethos", which is
| concerned with how to establish yourself with your audience as
| trustworthy and sympathetic. In advertising, lots of elements
| beyond mere words are employed to establish ethos, visual
| style, sound, editing.
|
| But I suppose I never explicitly considered the visual display
| of an application as an exercise in rhetoric, though upon
| reflection, it certainly can be. Perhaps we all need visual-
| rhetorical training.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Thanks for the link, I had no idea that it had a name. The folks
| on the site that starts with 4 and ends with chan have done some
| funny parodies of it.
|
| You know, it takes some real work to do a Fitzpatrick and Van
| Kaufman ad. There's a kind of artistic malaise in the modern era.
|
| Admittedly, you see that kind of look in vintage travel and
| airline posters.
| vmception wrote:
| > When you see the CEO of tech companies talk in private or to
| one another, the way that they frame their view of the world is
| fascinatingly opposed to the world depicted in a Corporate
| Memphis illustration
|
| I see a CEO who won't squirrel away over details that are
| irrelevant to making money, isn't married to a company as their
| baby, and has in particular let go of the design process and
| given it to designers or design firms _because that CEO doesn 't
| actually care_. And that's perfect.
|
| I think of companies as short expeditions to the New World to get
| the gold, return, and everybody disbands and never talks to each
| other again. Imagine if Columbus instead told the Queen of Spain
| that he wanted frills on the sails of the Nina, and that the
| typography needed changing. Would be absurd. Same for companies.
|
| This view of reality has been a highly effective for me.
| knolax wrote:
| Products made by people who take no pride in the product are
| rarely good. It's the difference between enterprise slime and
| the software that you actually use on your personal computer.
| Most software really doesn't exist in a competitive market,
| it's naturally monopolistic, so you can't just rely on market
| forces to ensure it isn't shit.
| lwhi wrote:
| It's the world we live in.
|
| But to say the situation is perfect, is quite simply a lie.
| Animats wrote:
| Interestingly, this has spread to second-tier virtual worlds.
| Decentraland, Sominium Space, and Facebook Horizon all have that
| look. It's the opposite of the realistic, gritty world of AAA
| game titles.
|
| It's safe and banal. Facebook is very concerned about
| "safety".[1] By which they mean "no sex", not "no scams". Their
| solution to this in Horizon is that their characters have no body
| below the waist.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/Uf_9J_EdzZw
| jdjkckfkrrn wrote:
| This style is also called in a derogative way "humans of flat".
|
| It's quite controversial in the design world. Critique of it can
| also be a bad career move, so people are a bit hush about it.
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Trends are trendy, film at 11.
| mdoms wrote:
| If you don't want to discuss the article feel free to click the
| little 'x' and move on.
| rnd0 wrote:
| Critiquing the article (calling it redundant, "trends are
| trendy" etc) _is_ discussing it.
| nomdep wrote:
| What 'x'? There isn't one in the Hacker News UI?
| ConceptJunkie wrote:
| So maybe one tenth of one percent of marketing people have an
| original idea in their heads. This is nothing new.
| analog31 wrote:
| Trends serve a use, which is to remind us of exactly this
| fact. Whenever we paeans are told that we can't contribute a
| product idea, because the big ideas have to come from the big
| idea people, or that design concepts stem from "research," a
| trend comes along and reassures us that we're all equals
| after all.
| mattkevan wrote:
| Here's a good selection of Corporate Memphis, for your reference.
|
| https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis
|
| The 80s Memphis style was like Bauhaus but with more formica, but
| this new style is more of an attempt to make rapacious startups
| funded by vulture capital/rapacious megacorps intent on
| destroying the fabric of society (delete as appropriate) feel
| like warm, fuzzy friends. Hello fellow humans, aren't we all
| friendly, human and fun, etc.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| I work with people who seemed to have watched Silicon Valley's
| Hooli and thought "wow what a great company, I want to work at
| a place like that!"
| EvRev wrote:
| From a technical perspective I enjoy using graphics that are able
| to be rendered as a SVG. I believe that is why this style has
| taken off, it is able to be served and rendered with regard to
| performance. The article presents it as a change made by Apple,
| but it was really the frontend that pushed visuals like this.
|
| I support redesigns every three years and have stopped
| recommending the faceless images that is Memphis Group. Trends
| are great, regular work to purge trends is even better.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| > I believe that is why this style has taken off, it is able to
| be served and rendered with regard to performance.
|
| Bingo. This and the flexibility to compose your own scenery
| from those illustration systems vs. hunting down the right
| stock image or hiring a photographer.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Really you should blame the popularity of SVG graphics
| cashew_worm wrote:
| especially scalable SVG graphics
| lwhi wrote:
| It's not the popularity of svgs .. it's the need for resolution
| independent graphics.
| blululu wrote:
| The trend is real but it is also pretty innocuous. I know that
| design people think that these things influence collective
| consciousness in a deep way but really it is just another cog in
| the wheel. In my personal experience, the primary reason that
| design teams prefer this style is that it is able to clearly
| represent a diverse and inclusive audience. Inclusivity and
| diversity are very important goals for most American companies.
| Part of this may be related to certain liberal ideologies but
| most of this is just about capitalism. America is a diverse
| country and most American companies also harbor aspirations to
| serve global markets. Having a simple way to show that your
| products can solve problems for everyone is just good for
| business.
| Lammy wrote:
| It lets companies look diverse without being diverse, yeah.
| blululu wrote:
| A subtle distinction here: The goal is not for the company to
| look diverse but rather for the product/service to appeal to
| a diverse customer/user base. This is a formidable design
| challenge. Depicting the full range of human life is not
| really possible with half a dozen images. The solution that
| everyone has landed on is to lower the fidelity of the
| representation. If we get rid of photorealism, 3d features,
| texture and other high resolution features, then a single
| illustration can encompass a much greater slice of humanity
| than a photograph could. I'm sure that there are other
| solutions to this design problem but I don't think that
| anything will replace the Memphis aesthetic until people
| understand the needs that led to its ubiquity. Any
| alternative aesthetic will need to satisfy the same basic
| business requirements.
| lghh wrote:
| Chicken and egg. If you're a company that isn't very diverse
| but is trying to change that, a good first step is to present
| diversity. If that's the ONLY step, then sure go ahead and
| drag them, but it's not bad on its face.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/QnhXE
| saagarjha wrote:
| I hate Corporate Memphis as much as the next person but
|
| > "Isometric perspective is interesting, because nothing recedes
| to a vanishing point," Rudnick says, "and therefore it also
| eliminates the variable of time." He points out that this type of
| design is particularly popular with fintech and mortgage
| companies - playing down the passage of time is particularly
| advantageous to firms selling financial products that you may end
| up paying off for years.
|
| seems like it's reading a bit too much.
| Karunamon wrote:
| I'm glad I wasn't the only one who detected the scent of what I
| call "arthouse wankery" here. This is popular for the same
| reason flat UIs are popular - they're easy to create, blandly
| inoffensive, and convey "modern" to the viewer.
| jsonne wrote:
| Seriously. It has a lot more to do with the idea too that if
| you look similar to other big companies who are using it then
| you'll get a modicum of a trust factor out of the gate than
| some nefarious psy op.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| reminds me of the now-infamous Pepsi "Breathtaking" design
| document https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-
| arnell...
| sdwr wrote:
| I love this, true modern art. My favorite bit is on page 26,
| illustrating the "gravitational pull of Pepsi".
|
| Is it just me, or do all the pepsi logos look like second
| place? I can't see them from a blank slate, but the smooth
| curves and contrasting colors scream #2 to me.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| This document is insane. It feels like everyone involved in
| the production of it is so utterly disconnected from reality.
|
| That first page "Trajectory of innovation" with the
| pseudograph is an utterly hilarious distillation of the
| madness yet to come. The deeper I read into the document the
| worse it got.
|
| Golden ratio, Patterns being found where there were none to
| begin with ("perimeter oscillations"), Pepsi Energy fields,
| Pepsi Universe.
|
| This reads like a pamphlet buckling under the excited and
| emphatic pointing of a disheveled man with a tinfoil hat on
| saying "SEE, SEE THE TRUTH IS ALL IN HERE!"
|
| What learning can be taken from this? Is it a case of the
| train of thought being very poorly explained? Or is it a case
| of self absorbed people surrounded by "yes-men" basking in
| the glory of their own brilliance?
| Lammy wrote:
| > What learning can be taken from this?
|
| That being stupidly outrageous is a great marketing
| strategy considering we're still all discussing a branding
| document from 2009. The gravitational pull of Pepsi is
| real! :)
| FredPret wrote:
| I've never heard of this before. It's an elaborate parody...
| right?
| proggy wrote:
| It is absolutely real [1][2], and was quite the scandal at
| the time. If the reporting is to be believed, PepsiCo paid
| about $1 million for the branding strategy. All to arrive
| at a blob that looks like a fat person with a red shirt and
| blue pants separating from each other at the waistline [3].
| So yes, it is a bit unreal.
|
| [1] https://adage.com/article/agency-news/breathtaking-
| word-purp...
|
| [2] https://www.fastcompany.com/1160304/pepsi-logo-design-
| brief-...
|
| [3] https://www.cannotunsee.net/post/730928004/pepsi
| allenu wrote:
| Oh, I remember this. I wonder how much of it was they came up
| with the design quickly and realized they had a lot of time
| and money left, so they got to work on the justification
| process that we see here.
| daaang wrote:
| Cool to see Humaaan mentioned. They were one of the first
| successful startups from Tommy Schlaaang and the Schlaaang
| Corporation.
| k12sosse wrote:
| _layered jungle noises_
|
| A tad ironic, as I'm actually browsing this from my schlaaang
| superseat.
| mattkevan wrote:
| Had a discussion about this style with an illustrator friend a
| few months ago.
|
| Illustration is genuinely better at conveying concepts than
| photography, and everyone is tired of lightbulbs, puzzle pieces,
| people in suits shaking hands and other stock photo cliches.
|
| Problem is, commissioning an illustrator, especially a good one,
| is expensive and time consuming and takes excellent art direction
| to get right.[1]
|
| This style however, is cheap, easy (anyone with a bit of drawing
| ability can do it), it's sort of cozy and friendly, and doesn't
| have any real negative cultural associations. It also wasn't,
| until about six months ago, so totally overexposed it's become a
| cliche in itself.
|
| Now, there's no excuse to use it - just betrays a fatal lack of
| originality. Might as well include an image of someone reaching
| up to a blue wireframe globe superimposed with zeroes and ones
| and @ symbols.
|
| [1] Original illustration isn't used nearly as much as it could
| or should be in digital products. Nautil.us do it well, but they
| are a magazine. Seriously, commission more illustration, it's
| great.
| ok123456 wrote:
| > Might as well include an image of someone reaching up to a
| blue wireframe globe superimposed with zeroes and ones and @
| symbols.
|
| I'd prefer that.
| grouphugs wrote:
| in the commercials you get cheap xanax and life is awesome, in
| real life you get rape and death
| jollybean wrote:
| I don't think this has much to do with technology or Photoshop -
| these memes are always he case where a few leading agencies in
| NYC do something for some big clients and then everyone copies.
| It's 'creative herd mentality as driven by generally non-
| marketing CEO's making the final decision on creative'.
| sidpatil wrote:
| A good example of this is Volkswagen's "Think Small"
| advertisement from the 1960s [1]. Plenty of magazine ads ripped
| off this style afterwards.
|
| [1] https://pages.uncc.edu/visualrhetoric/projects/individual-
| pr...
| lainga wrote:
| The name refers to how it resembles the work of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Group
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I first thought of hieroglyphs from Memphis Egypt, which also
| lack any depth and are drawn similarly.
|
| https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_925/http...
| bitwize wrote:
| Tim Burton's movies often have aesthetic mini-manifestos
| embedded in them. For example, _Beetlejuice_ represented the
| reverse of the classic "ghost story", one in which the ghosts
| were sweet, earnest, and identifiable while the living people
| were horrid and monstrous. So for the Maitlands, Burton chose
| the aesthetic of their traditional Victorian Connecticut home
| with all its understated ornateness. The building has
| "character", which the young couple wish to preserve.
|
| The Deetzes (except for Lydia) are represented by... Memphis.
| And the fact that they strip the home down and completely
| remodel it into a Memphis mishmash indicates how horrible and
| destructive they are.
|
| That said, OG Memphis at least has an element of fun and
| funkiness to it. Think the opening titles of _Saved by the
| Bell_. Corporate Memphis is about as funky as the KPMG theme
| song: https://youtu.be/NCvKXgp-Awo
| Pils wrote:
| For visual reference, Evan Collin's Are.na block is the most
| cohesive collection of this aesthetic I've found online
| https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/memphis-
| general-g....
|
| The Memphis-esque style is definitely having a moment. You'll
| notice that the Chillwave aesthetic borrowed a ton of visual
| cues as well.
| lainga wrote:
| I find the "childlike" quality of it oddly appropriate for
| modern corps, but not in a good way, more like "we know we're
| infantilising you. Drink up!"
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| Thanks for answering the most obvious question anyone would
| have about this phenomenon that was inexplicably totally
| missing from the article itself.
| sweetheart wrote:
| It isn't; they mention it.
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| Though, fairly buried after using the term constantly
| throughout the beginning of the piece!
|
| Didn't find it myself so I came back to HN and saw GP
| comment. Then cmd+f for "italian" to find it in the
| article.
| mdoms wrote:
| > The name is a play on the 80's Italian design and
| architecture group Memphis, which positioned itself as a
| garish and child-like rejection of functionalist styles.
|
| From the article.
| knolax wrote:
| > multi cultural inclusive visual banality
|
| > It lets companies look diverse
|
| > Not sure what skin color to use? Make them blue
|
| Seeing cartoon SVGs of brown people really hits a nerve for some
| people. IMO if you walk around the Bay Area the racial
| distribution is more or less the same as these graphics, so
| there's really nothing to complain about in that regard. Go buy
| Russian software if you don't like it.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Find it weird how similar this is to 90s era software box art,
| things like Adobe Acrobat 5.0 [1]
|
| [1]
| https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/adobe/images/d/da/Adobe_Ac...
| Disruptive_Dave wrote:
| An element not mentioned much in this thread is the significant
| challenges in using actual photography/people: expensive and
| time-consuming for custom work, super choppy legal waters (can't
| tell you how many times the subject of a photo pulled from
| Unsplash reached out asking how we got their pic), and paltry
| options for online buying ("free" sites like aforementioned
| Unsplash or expensive Getty and their craptastic library).
| lykahb wrote:
| When paging the old magazines, I noticed that until about the
| mid-eighties the focus of an ad was on a product. An ad would
| even boast of the technical specs of a car or an audio system.
|
| A prominent display of people in the process of consuming, or
| even just people, puts the marketing focus on lifestyle, brand
| identity and the alignment with some values.
|
| I hate Corporate Memphis the same way I hate the other attempts
| to hack my reptilian brain and build an emotional connection with
| a brand.
| dale_glass wrote:
| "a few years ago he might have been complaining about the glut of
| owls and foxes wearing monocles"
|
| foxes with monocles? When was that a fashion? In what context? I
| am most curious.
| lwhi wrote:
| 'Folk naivete' definitely seemed to be a cliche style employed
| to disarm the consumer thinking of themselves as 'individual'.
| swearwolf wrote:
| It was a cutesy art trend. This is the first artist I noticed
| doing it:
|
| https://berkleyillustration.com/
|
| It spread from there and became ubiquitous, at least in the
| Pacific Northwest.
| lwhi wrote:
| Really? I think this might be known as spam.
| tonywastaken wrote:
| "It really boils my piss to be honest," says Jack Hurley, a
| Leeds-based illustrator who says his main output is "daft seaside
| posters."
| KineticLensman wrote:
| If you are a Brit (or even otherwise) I really recommend taking
| a look at Hurley's work [0]. The taglines for each resort are
| just superb - e.g. "Cleethorpes - The Final Resort"
|
| As an aside, I'm reminded of the old joke that Cleethorpes
| doesn't have a twin town, but is in a suicide pact with
| Grimsby.
|
| [0] https://www.pinterest.co.uk/christinefbosha/jack-hurley-
| post...
| samizdis wrote:
| He wrote an article for The Guardian a couple of years ago in
| which he explains his work - cracking images in it, too:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/nov/29/rubbish-
| seasi...
| lwhi wrote:
| If your company's reach is limitless, you need to appeal to
| everyone. If your company's offering is wide and disparate, you
| need a visual brand that offers cohesion. If you want to fit in
| and belong, you need to employ the same visual vocabulary as
| everyone else.
|
| This trend is a symptom of the system business currently operates
| within.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Better question:
|
| Why are you even watching ads?
|
| Due to my ad blockers and not watching TV or listening to the
| radio, I almost never see or hear ads, so didn't even know that
| many ads looked the same.
|
| I wish more people used ad blockers, so we can wipe out the
| cancer that is advertising.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Do you ever go outside?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Yes, but I listen to music or podcasts on headphones so don't
| hear adverts that might be playing on a radio in stores and
| avert my gaze from billboards and ads on monitors.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Ok well most people don't want to go to that kind of
| excessive effort to avoid seeing an advert, so that's why
| they're seeing adverts.
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