Apple's App Store art is fucking horrendous | Flat art / Alegria / Corporate Memphis - click for feet

[The Lawgiver]

I was going to necro this thread before realizing it was still going albeit not super active. The reason for this is it's now been nearly a decade of this sht becoming more and more prevalalent and obnoxious and as a result we now have videos like this showing up in our flat-ified corporate art filled website sidebars. I thought I took a screengrab of several that were showing up for me the last month but I can no longer find them. All thevideos were like "Why did the 2000s look like this?" and then it shows stuff that was just normal looking logos and sometimes the trippy design stuff from 80s-early 2000s era of computers as the thumbnail. That alone tells me this is possibly a result of the public consciousness losing the means to understand this hellscape we've been living in is an extremely recent development.

Also noticed video essay people and some more pretentious posters online in general treating the 2000s as if it was like the 1920s era america in terms of culture which is surreal to me but that's a completely different thing though t's kinda related. Everything from the past that's aesthetically pleasing becomes "2000s" and then everything offensive joke wise also becomes "OH IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME IT WAS THE 2000S WE'RE BETTER NOW". They do the same thing with 2016 too if they were a person that had a sense of humor before lockdowns happened. Extremely concerning how stagnant and soulless shit has been becoming.

View attachment 6297631
what the FUCK AM I EVEN LOOKING AT

Corpo art human swastika.

 

[Ahriman]

Relevant to globohomo art... the flattening of every single logo out there.

https://x.com/groovisphere/status/1836544894434681151

https://x.com/RichDWolff/status/1836788261349679177

 

[Fapcop]

To be fair, the entire Apple App Store has been utter crap for at least half a decade.

The days where you could find a neat app or game for a couple of dollars, or pay $10 or $20 for a super useful daily driver kinda app are long gone.

Now it’s a hellscape of subscription bullshit and ME-TOO! apps.

And pricing has gotten absolutely insane. A little utility for tracking whatever will cost you 50$ a year. Want a good camera app? Here’s a lifetime license for $200!

(And “lifetime” of course means the lifetime of the app. Because next year they’ll make a CameraApp 2.0 instead of making it an update so they can sell more subscriptions.)

I don’t even remember the last time I paid for an app on there. It’s either worthless or ridiculously overpriced.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Angel Soft counts for this thread.

 

[Loris Yeltsin]

Angel Soft counts for this thread.
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Don't think it does. While I'm not sure why they thought a 3D render of their angel baby as a Funko Pop would represent their brand better, it's not flat design in any sense. Admittedly still horrendous, though.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Funko Pop

Looks more like that brain rot Cocomelon to me.

 

[Loris Yeltsin]

Looks more like that brain rot Cocomelon to me.

Yeah, you're right.

Some contributions, sorry if these are reposts. They're an example of an artist desperately trying to be as Alegria as fuck, but somehow producing something even less visually appealing due to complete incompetence:



As you may be able to tell from the watermark, these are from Freepik, a site where contributors can decide whether to offer their assets for free or as Premium Subscription exclusives. This artist decided to go with the latter, which speaks volumes of how in touch with reality they are.

edit: Some more from a different artist.



As prey for sustenance, I presume, considering this misshapen blob monster has neither a soul, nor the capacity to feel.

I like the ones that are so abstract, it takes a second to even process what the hell it is the image is trying to convey:



I don't know why there's a second set of legs sticking out of this siamese twin's anus:



I always needed more body horror in my Valentine's cards.

 

[Brain Power]

For Steam's current sales, a flatglobohomo nigger and a flatglobohomo ginger

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

For Steam's current sales, a flatglobohomo nigger and a flatglobohomo ginger
View attachment 6976141

Atleast they didn’t give him the haircut.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

New holistic Apple Health Study launches today in the Research app (archive)


Apple’s New Health Study Will Research Overall Health Issues That Will “Improve Our Understanding Of The Human Health” (archive)


Returning to tradition with Apple.

 

[888Flux]

For Steam's current sales, a flatglobohomo nigger and a flatglobohomo ginger
View attachment 6976141

To my eyes this looks ML generated. There’s usually “soft” edges in ML photos that look like compression artifacts where if they were created by a normal vector art program like Illustrator or Inkscape they would be “hard” (if that makes sense)

If so, imagine having access to a literal infinite clip art generator and what you chose to make is fucking this abomination.

Artists have a huge hate boner for ML tools, but the real problem is that these fucking companies place no value on art direction or branding, or marketing. There are millions of artists who produce cool shit that you can find anywhere who will work for reasonable pay.

Corporations just don’t give a fuck. They are happy with force feeding you this slop instead of paying actual graphic designers. It’s really sickening. Apple is a trillion dollar company. Steam is a multi-billion dollar company. Why it doesn’t occur to them to just keep some artists on the payroll is fucking beyond me.

It’s more than just a bad art style. It’s some type of spiritual assault. Corporate Memphis / Algeria is often equated to Brutalist architecture and I think that comparison holds true. Both are visual attempts at breaking you down.

So fucking tired of seeing this bullshit everywhere you have no idea.

Why can’t they just ever make something nice. Why.

 

[Troonos]

For Steam's current sales, a flatglobohomo nigger and a flatglobohomo ginger
View attachment 6976141

Eh, that's pretty tame. Barely Humans of Flat style at all.

 

[Loris Yeltsin]

To my eyes this looks ML generated. There’s usually “soft” edges in ML photos that look like compression artifacts where if they were created by a normal vector art program like Illustrator or Inkscape they would be “hard” (if that makes sense)

If so, imagine having access to a literal infinite clip art generator and what you chose to make is fucking this abomination.

Artists have a huge hate boner for ML tools, but the real problem is that these fucking companies place no value on art direction or branding, or marketing. There are millions of artists who produce cool shit that you can find anywhere who will work for reasonable pay.

Corporations just don’t give a fuck. They are happy with force feeding you this slop instead of paying actual graphic designers. It’s really sickening. Apple is a trillion dollar company. Steam is a multi-billion dollar company. Why it doesn’t occur to them to just keep some artists on the payroll is fucking beyond me.

It’s more than just a bad art style. It’s some type of spiritual assault. Corporate Memphis / Algeria is often equated to Brutalist architecture and I think that comparison holds true. Both are visual attempts at breaking you down.

So fucking tired of seeing this bullshit everywhere you have no idea.

Why can’t they just ever make something nice. Why.

I think you're commenting more on this individual image, jpg artifacts included, than on the actual art. Those Steam event things usually are vector-based and animated. They also include variations of the main header image, tiling backgrounds, and of course all the shit you can get by spending money during the event, like trading cards or animated emojis. I think it'd be more work to set up an AI workflow that produces all of this at a decent level of consistency and quality than to just commission it (or just do it in-house; it's not like Valve doesn't have a graphic design department). Stylistically, it's not out of the ordinary either.

It's boring and generic, but it doesn't scream "AI" to me.

 

[Creative Username]

- snip -

I know little about graphic design but at least they're using ok colors and a somewhat nice font instead of garish pastel bullshit and the same 2 incredibly boring globohomo sans-serif typefaces you see all over. They use one of those fonts on the lower bit, but it's body text; not a horrible decision (legible, easy-to-digest, style-free body text is exactly what those globohomo fonts are meant to do.)

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Get coding help from Gemini Code Assist — now for free (archive)

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

Hey everyone, looks like Apple Fitness is having a 10 year anniversary later this month. And you guessed it, the art is fugly.

 

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Hey everyone, looks like Apple Fitness is having a 10 year anniversary later this month. And you guessed it, the art is fugly.

I think it's supposed to be a callback to the bright neons of the 80s and 90s; notice the black character has a similarly colored headband on. Then again, this is Apple in current year - going full faggot wouldn't be out of character for them.

 

[invisibult plus+]

Here's what an Estonian company run by Turks does.

 

[Howslans]

Here's what an Estonian company run by Turks does.

Glamourising a fat, white, tattooed onlyfans prostitute is so perfectly on brand for this repulsive art style,

 

[Mullet Man]

Asked AI to "Generate a really woke, super diverse dystopian minimalistic corporate memphis orwellian advertisement".
It produced this image alongside an accompanying story:

"Imagine a sleek, hyper-minimalist billboard bathed in sterile corporate blue, where smiling figures of impossibly diverse origins hold hands in algorithmically optimized harmony. Their eyes gleam with vacant positivity, a perfect reflection of an identity-neutral utopia.

The tagline? "All Are One. One Is All." Beneath it, smaller text whispers: "Compliance is Inclusion. Inclusion is Compliance."

In the lower right corner, the corporate logo—just a clean geometric shape, no words, because true brand power transcends language. A QR code looms beside it, pulsing softly. Scanning it leads directly to The Experience Portal™, a frictionless interface where citizens customize their legally sanctioned opinions.

A soft voice echoes from sleek overhead speakers: "Remember: Authenticity is an outdated concept. Be what is needed. Be what is expected. Be what is provided."

And in the background? A looping, AI-generated melody, mathematically proven to be universally soothing—yet haunting in its perfection."

Here's another one, accompanied a story:

"A stark, empty landscape—smooth corporate white, punctuated by geometric pastel blobs and unnatural gradients that scream Memphis design in its most sanitized form. Floating among these shapes are silhouetted figures, stripped of individuality—faceless smiles, fingers glued to omnipresent touchscreens, their arms subtly morphing into sleek product packaging.

At the center, the slogan: "YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCE."

Beneath it, corporate jargon in a soft, friendly sans-serif font: "Optimize your living. Standardize your emotions. Upgrade to Human 2.0."

A polished, minimalist face looms at the bottom—its glassy stare reflecting code snippets and brand logos, as if it has become one with the algorithm. Its grin is reassuring, empty, approved by the board of directors."

And finally, watch this if your eyeballs need a break reading this thread: