Two Different Kinds of Illustration
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Two Different Kinds of Illustration
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Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#2"Step back and you might mistake these as excerpts from a children’s book, except that they depict grown adults doing ostensibly grown-up things. One could argue that they effectively infantilize their intended audience,"
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#3The main point they author is making is:
"the prevalence of a single, monocultural aesthetic that seemingly almost every startup and tech company and would-be industry disruptor out there has adopted, it’s worth wondering if there’s some other voice—or even a different modulation of this same voice—that could be appropriate."
This, of course, extends far beyond illustration (the topic of the article - the examples provided are striking). I would love to see more variety - especially for styling UI components because I think we can do so much better than Material Design/Metro or Bootstrap.
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#4From what I've read I don't get the feeling that he has considered that more often than not, illustration in products often serves as an affordance. As such it needs to be highly legible and brief. Sometimes similar to editorial artwork, but usually with entirely different needs.
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#5I think the one word that sums it up is ‘safe.’ Few people would be willing to spend millions developing an app, then risk it all letting someone express themself. The NYT lower stakes lets them be better.
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#6One is a collection of very interesting and diverse styles and approaches to a subject I can't stand looking at. The other is a collection of interesting and useful products in a narrow range of styles that I am completely tired of. But both seem more effective for their intended purposes than if the boring style was representing the abhorrent subject matter, and vice versa.
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#7The main point they author is making is: "the prevalence of a single, monocultural aesthetic that seemingly almost every startup and tech company and would-be industry disruptor out there has adopted, it’s worth wondering if there’s some other voice—or even a different modulation of this same voice—that could be appropriate." This, of course, extends far beyond illustration (the topic of the article - the examples pr…
Don't mind having a go at answering the appropriateness of this vector-based style, from a design/psychological perspective;
It might be inherent to the mathemetical precision of this drawing style. The clean-cut shapes and geometrical shapes imply a strict adherence to rules, purposeful determination and look clean, clear and predicatable.
In short: they make your product look well thought out.
As opposed to a sketchy drawing style. (Sketchy. What's in a name?)
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#8One is a collection of very interesting and diverse styles and approaches to a subject I can't stand looking at. The other is a collection of interesting and useful products in a narrow range of styles that I am completely tired of. But both seem more effective for their intended purposes than if the boring style was representing the abhorrent subject matter, and vice versa.
so the illustrations of the subject that we can't stand to look at must be specifically made to initially appear as something else in order to capture our attention, that explains the diversity. the 'boring style' is just the design equivalent of WWGD, What Would Google Do...
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#9I think the one word that sums it up is ‘safe.’ Few people would be willing to spend millions developing an app, then risk it all letting someone express themself. The NYT lower stakes lets them be better.
I think you're on to something here. An image on the NYT website has a viewership that decays exponentially over a couple of days. And NYT gets to cycle through dozens of articles every day. So, images are designed to hook a user's attention, and even if happens to be annoying, nobody looks at it after a day or two.
On the other hand, an app's interface is something the users look at for a much more extended period.
To compare with newspapers, think about the web interface of different newspapers (or even the layout of most print newspapers) -- you'll be amazed at how similar they are! I just looked at: https://www.nytimes.com/ , https://www.washingtonpost.com/ , https://www.bostonglobe.com/
So, while I would like more variety in interfaces, I think it's a very hard problem.
Re: Two Different Kinds of Illustration
#10I think the one word that sums it up is ‘safe.’ Few people would be willing to spend millions developing an app, then risk it all letting someone express themself. The NYT lower stakes lets them be better.
I think that idea of people in tech that designer is expressing himself when doing app design might be part of answer. We see it as something suspect, waste of time. Technical graphical design is not designer expressing himself. It is more about what target audience likes and is attracted to.