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Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

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Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#21

Post by burlesona »

Design trends come and go. Minimalism is has probably already peaked, and typically when a trend peaks the next trend intentionally runs against it.

The "gen-z" look reminds me of the early web when people thought that and were really exciting html elements. Those were noisy pages, but they had the feeling of an enthusiastic hobbyist scrapbook, and that was part of the appeal. "I could make something cool like that." That "artsy teenager's notebook" aesthetic is like the 90s web reborn in high def, this time with 40mb of javascript along for the ride.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#23

Post by SamBam »

burlesona wrote: post #21

Design trends come and go. Minimalism is has probably already peaked, and typically when a trend peaks the next trend intentionally runs against it. The "gen-z" look reminds me of the early web when people thought that and were really exciting html elements. Those were noisy pages, but they had the feeling of an enthusiastic hobbyist scrapbook, and that was part of the appeal. "I could make something cool like that."…

Agree. I feel like I've heard so many comments recently that the web looks so boring, and people miss the old fun of the early web. And people who miss the web of the 90s and early Oughts are by definition not Gen Z...

I'm excited for a bit of bang and pop and messiness and individuality to come back.

With it, I hope for return of websites. You can't display individuality on an endless scrolling feed of social media.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#24

Post by wrycoder »

I hit partiful.com and found this after scrolling a bit:

The Recyclable Camera Includes development, a prepaid mailer, & free shipping.

Photos are sent straight to your phone, where you can upload them to your Partiful party page.

Go ahead, make some memories

(The specs: Premium Kodak 400 ISO 35mm film with 27 exposures.)

Really? Everything old is young again!

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#25

Post by chrisco255 »

hammock wrote: post #11

I first noticed this "Gen-Z" mode trend when I played Mario Kart on Wii. Compared to N64 or SNES, the screen was so busy. I honestly had a hard time keeping track of where my player was and where the "track" was compared to all the colorful fast-moving background cruft. I'm not a gamer so maybe I'm just not used to it. Fortnite seems like another example of how "Gen-Z" and headachy a digital environment can be. For s…

Are you sure the N64 and SNES Mario Karts weren't just less busy due to hardware constraints? N64 had limited polygon count compared with modern gaming systems.

Also, the Wii came out in what, 2006? It's definitely a millennial gaming system.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#26

Post by z3c0 »

SamBam wrote: post #23
burlesona wrote: post #21

Design trends come and go. Minimalism is has probably already peaked, and typically when a trend peaks the next trend intentionally runs against it. The "gen-z" look reminds me of the early web when people thought that and were really exciting html elements. Those were noisy pages, but they had the feeling of an enthusiastic hobbyist scrapbook, and that was part of the appeal. "I could make something cool like that."…

Agree. I feel like I've heard so many comments recently that the web looks so boring, and people miss the old fun of the early web. And people who miss the web of the 90s and early Oughts are by definition not Gen Z... I'm excited for a bit of bang and pop and messiness and individuality to come back. With it, I hope for return of websites. You can't display individuality on an endless scrolling feed of social media.

I started out a little curmudgeonly about the style, but was won over by Persona 5: https://www.atlus.com/persona5/home.html

It's messy, chaotic, and feels like something from the late 90's/early 00's, where you'd often see custom web pages using formatted images as elements of the page. But I love it. I can't quite make sense of it, as I adhere pretty strongly to brutalism/minimalism when designing my own content.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#27

Post by dudul »

hammock wrote: post #11

I first noticed this "Gen-Z" mode trend when I played Mario Kart on Wii. Compared to N64 or SNES, the screen was so busy. I honestly had a hard time keeping track of where my player was and where the "track" was compared to all the colorful fast-moving background cruft. I'm not a gamer so maybe I'm just not used to it. Fortnite seems like another example of how "Gen-Z" and headachy a digital environment can be. For s…

I don't think the Wii is a gen z thing.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#29

Post by bilekas »

This hits the nail on the head and I never even realized it. I am a religious minimalist when it comes to design, I have no idea why but progress from the 90's sites just seemed to keep removing things so it felt like a natural progression.

I can see why the change from minimal to 'busy' would be the inverse when starting from a minimalist POV like the younger generations. Great article.

Re: Light mode, Dark mode, and Gen-Z mode?

#30

Post by mamoriamohit »

I remember the time when I first used and I jumped like a little kid. Fast forward a few years when I started designing for web as a career, and I was sad to see that nobody used in production. It turned out to be a toy.

Heart broken.

But I grew to love the minimalism design.

Recently I started Youtubing and make designing thumbnails, minimal doesn't work. The demography 18 to 35 year old prefer something that quickly grabs their attention.

Amused to see the trend seeping into UI/UX as well.

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