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Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

wired.co.uk

71–80 of 195 posts

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#71
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

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#72

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 y…

reminds me of the now-infamous Pepsi "Breathtaking" design document https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#73
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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#75
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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#76

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.

Do you ever go outside?

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#77

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.

Do you ever go outside?

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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#78

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…

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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever go outside?

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.

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.

Re: Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

#80

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…

> 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"

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