<story><title>Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis</title><url>https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tech</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>olivermarks</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a bit like &amp;#x27;nobody gets fired for buying IBM&amp;#x2F;McKinsey&amp;#x27; etc...no one challenges product managers and marketing when yet another adobe illustrator generated Memphis style brand identity &amp;amp; UI is unveiled, complete with multi cultural inclusive visual banality. At some point this will suddenly be deader than an animated gif of a flame and the next trend will quickly become ubiquitous.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joe_the_user</author><text>&lt;i&gt;...no one has the courage to think differently...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Almost no ordinary company wants to present themselves as wholly bizarre and strange. Many companies want to present themselves as basically normal but with a few interesting quirks and affections. Getting that balance right is hard, so you get the system that the article describes; it lets a variety of organizations appear slightly different in more or less the same way.&lt;p&gt;People manage &amp;quot;coolness&amp;quot; effectively for upward mobility integrate the unusual into something that&amp;#x27;s mostly mainstream - have a leather jacket or a quirky haircut or whatever.  I&amp;#x27;ll spend time at industrial music festivals where no one expects to get but that&amp;#x27;s a decision and not the sort that anyone should expect a business to make.&lt;p&gt;(also, you&amp;#x27;d do well to avoid the multiculturalism issue)</text></comment>
<story><title>Why does every advert look the same? Corporate Memphis</title><url>https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tech</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>olivermarks</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a bit like &amp;#x27;nobody gets fired for buying IBM&amp;#x2F;McKinsey&amp;#x27; etc...no one challenges product managers and marketing when yet another adobe illustrator generated Memphis style brand identity &amp;amp; UI is unveiled, complete with multi cultural inclusive visual banality. At some point this will suddenly be deader than an animated gif of a flame and the next trend will quickly become ubiquitous.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lwhi</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s more ultitarian than that. Companies have traditionally got what they need by using these conventions.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully that will change, because it sure is boring.</text></comment>