I think the oversimplification of logos is mostly because the brands themselves are recognizable and designers most likely want to keep reinventing the logo to keep a stable job make it more "sleek and modern-looking". Lesser-known brands tend not to be simplified due to needing to stand out from the competition. It's why Firefox no longer has a fox - people don't need to see a fox encircling the globe any more, they just see the base shape of something vaguely fox-shaped (or now, tail-shaped) around a blueish sphere.
The problem is that all contemporary designers think that way, and in turn make products look nearly indistinguishable when you put them together. Google's apps (eg: Maps, Mail, Drive, etc.) used to have distinct colors and logos, but are now drastically simplified to their base elements and incorporate Google's quad-color design. You might be forgiven for confusing their apps for each other at first glance.
I also detest the corporate art style trend so much. I think one such sub-style is called Alegria (meaning "joy" in Spanish) but the Corporate Memphis-type of art predominates today's websites, especially when it comes to big tech. It's just so... ugly. I suppose one way to describe the art style is if figurative and impressionist art styles crossed paths. Simple, eye-watering colors are used with very little shading or details. People have widely disproportionate limbs and inhuman coloring to make them look as generic and "relatable" as possible by eschewing typical traits related with certain races. Corporate Memphis has a very 2-dimensional look to it that makes it uninteresting to look at. There's no depth or interesting nuances in the artwork because it's simplified so much and the subjects are usually floating in some sort of void. If other objects are shown, they're usually blobs of color with the barest traces of linework surrounding it.
I like that every markbiz trainee can slap one of these in Canva, slap some text onto it and a gradient background and call themselves"graphic artist ". And the suits go crazy over it!
Say goodbye to borders, guidelines, even readable colors on contrasting background. It's all gonna be ugly and hastily done.
Heck, art and video games isjust gonna be assets slapped together and out of place, shoddily put together by people who do not understand basic concepts.
I'm like 10% in this field with my career. Minimalism has many benefits, for one it is timeless. Walk into homes that haven't been renovated since the 70s and see the Artex crap on the ceilings etc. A plain ceiling will not go out of style.
It's futureproof.
It's also more widely appealing. Things with bold designs are polarizing. Some people might be disgusted by it.
Generally I buy minimalist looking things because I know they will fit in in any environment.
For cars it's the autistic chase to make the most aerodynamic shape to meet efficiency requirements. There's also a general lack of creativity among manufacturers since the mid 2010s when the Tesla minimalist style somehow captured the fascination of every braindead car executive who now commands the designers to emulate the Tesla-eque minimalist design while incorporating said company's corporate design somehow. Back in a more creative time we had cool cars from the likes of the Chrysler/Plymouth Prowler, Chevy SSR, Lexus LFA, SLR McLaren, and Ford Thunderbird.
It was surreal as hell riding in my aunt's worn out Honda Element when visiting a few years ago which, from a design standpoint felt more futuristic than any car I've ridden in in ages, while being old and dirty at the same time, it was a very weird contrast.
It was surreal as hell riding in my aunt's worn out Honda Element when visiting a few years ago which, from a design standpoint felt more futuristic than any car I've ridden in in ages, while being old and dirty at the same time, it was a very weird contrast.
Those first gen Elements are crazy utilitarian unibody vanlets. There's a whole cult following around them now because there really isn't anything else like it on the market.
I worked for a few years as a designer which included identity portfolio for some corporations, including big ones.
The logos are "minimalistic" because most serious brands want an idea that is transmitted through the logo, which has to be:
- easy to look at and convey the idea (not that important for very large brands)
- has to be scalable for print and web, regardless of the medium, so it has to be vector-based
- has to look best at essentially every size - should look the same on a flyer with a bunch of other logos of various sponsors of some event, or on a building on a very large poster, or on various ads on TV and web
- has to work well on video, some even want it to work well with 3D/animation
- has to have consistent colors that can be reproduced with accuracy over all these mediums (think CMYK Pantone stuff - when you go to the printshop you should be able to easily convey to the guys there what inks should be used)
There are a lot more of these; most difficult part is not even the technical design on the logo and the whole business ID associated with it, but the imagination part where you try to get the "idea" to be represented in a very easy, yet symbolic and recognizable way. Most businesses are boring as hell. Most people from these corpos that you'll work with have stupid, unrealistic ideas, some car repairs dude wanted Lambos and engines in their logo, some dude selling natural remedies wanted trees and leaves everywhere, you'll have a hard time convincing them (politely) about their stupidity and lack of design understanding, but they'll come around.
Keep it simple and smart.
IIRC, just about 10+ years ago, there were still quite a bit of limit on mobile tech and perhaps bandwidth as well, so people turned into making flat stuff to minimize data usage both in transfer and capacity. As these tech companies grew and invaded the laptop and desktop space through the Internet, they brought their art style with them.
It's a psychological warfare tactic that overrides your standards of beauty. By accepting this trend as normal, those who are naive have a harder time developing critical thinking.
Its design trends, its always been like that, companies dont want to look our of touch but dont want to be the odd one out either so they just do whatever everyone else is doing.
Look at 70's logos, they were all the same combo of fonts and colors View attachment 3940410
You might think it has "soul" now but back then when every logo had a style like this it was generic soulless corporate garbage.
The current flat design was popularized by google, which used to copy the 3D skeumorphism that apple popularized in the mid 2000s.
Corporate propaganda from the 1950s and 60s all had the same cheaply made hannah-barbera style characters, its not that different from current corporate memphis style which is also bland and easy to make.
You mention a few good ones, memorable ones, what I'm saying is that the vast majority were forgettable crap done by trendchashing companies. You got some arguably good logos now too but the vast majority are lazy also-rans, and those will be forgotten like most 70's logos were.
You mention a few good ones, memorable ones, what I'm saying is that the vast majority were forgettable crap done by trendchashing companies. You got some arguably good logos now too but the vast majority are lazy also-rans, and those will be forgotten like most 70's logos were.
Minimalism is the lowest form of aesthetic, and a plague upon all of humanity. Its also the basis from which all Current Year corporate art and aesthetic is drawn from.
That would be why. If you go back into the 1970s and 1980s you can see some examples of minimalism creeping into the corporate world, and in the 1990s it definitely took hold fully in the minds of the executive types. But it just wasn't really appealing to the average consumer until the unveiling of the iPhone. The iPhone directly sold minimalism to many people, since they were looking at and using it every single day.
It was surreal as hell riding in my aunt's worn out Honda Element when visiting a few years ago which, from a design standpoint felt more futuristic than any car I've ridden in in ages, while being old and dirty at the same time, it was a very weird contrast.
The element was ahead of the curve with the suicide doors and the overall design of the car, it was one of those takes that looks both old and from the future, like the og blocky M2.
IIRC, just about 10+ years ago, there were still quite a bit of limit on mobile tech and perhaps bandwidth as well, so people turned into making flat stuff to minimize data usage both in transfer and capacity. As these tech companies grew and invaded the laptop and desktop space through the Internet, they brought their art style with them.
Look at the early iphone and its UI icons: its all 3D skeuomorph with way more detail than today even tho the thing ran on a shitty samsung chip. It wasn't a technical issue, it was a style issue, the style came from OSX which used that since 2000 and it was a big deal back then, but then microsoft and google came up with the flat style (metro/material) and suddenly apple and anyone still using skeuomorph looked like old shit, like pixelated win3.1 icons in the mid 2000s.
Its all about branding, that's all, the age when you had to compromise on UI due to technical limitations its over, now what limits whatever design you make is retarded normies saying its too complicated and "why it can't be like facebook/instagram?" which is why the 2-way mirror in focus group rooms is reinforced to keep devs from chocking a bitch to death.
