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Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis

wired.co.uk

91–100 of 195 posts

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

#91

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.

TFA wrongly credits Apple with the flat trend.

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.

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

#93

> 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 desig…

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.

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

#94

> 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 desig…

It's the world we live in.

But to say the situation is perfect, is quite simply a lie.

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

#95

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…

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.

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

#96

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...

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?

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

#97
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 fie…

> 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! :)

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

#99
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.

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

#100

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…

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!"
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