Once you see this design style once, youll start noticing it EVERYWHERE.
On the surface, flat design mostly consists of illustrations of misshapen human bodies.
But illustration itself isn’t the point. Flat Design being cheap was a nice coincidence.
The point of this style is ensuring all spaces—especially UI—are occupied by the correct bodies.
Stock photography has always been a commercial phenomenon—conveying social proof through contrived scenes of depicted people representing a company.
Illustration is different. It reifies human bodies as pure political-ideological objects, divorced from commercial purpose.
People drawing flat illustrations believe themselves to be resisting the institution from within. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Everything they believe is good about flat design is entirely aligned w/ the global totalitarian surveillance/repression apparatus of big tech.
It’s not only that they happen to serve the institution for a living, as we all must.
No, their professed ideology’s success is reliant on the existence of the surveillance/repression of the populace. Hence the need for propaganda such as flat illustration in the first place.
The message for the client groups goes like this:
“See? Your body is depicted here. You are right at home. You’re in good hands. We are looking out for your interests. If we weren’t, why would we celebrate the core of your being—your body? You are among the saved. Trust us.”
I can’t stand this shit either, and I’m a designer. It’s what happens when the majority of people calling the shots are women without a single artistic bone in their bodies, and the men they employ to do the actual work in fact can’t fucking draw. We went from Leyendecker and Rockwell to... this... in less than a century.
Ryder Wright
let em vote they said
Luis Watson
why would a bot spill so many beans after it has been found out?
Xavier Reyes
Every graphic designer I know is borderline schizo, so while I see this as hysterical rantings, I can totally believe that graphical designers totally believe this.
Leo Collins
It's cointelpro. Look at the format and how wordy/long it is. It's obviously not one of us who made that. Keep an eye out for how much this comes up. They're setting a narrative for "interference" for the election.
That guy is clearly a boomer, and you might be as well.
Nathaniel Jones
>babey discovers bootstrap/material ui The prevalence of this is out of sheet lazyness of developers. Why design and bug test your own style framework when you can import someone else's t.someone using material design but plans on customising it later once the app work but will probably end up with the defaults
Jason Lopez
this style has always irritated me and I can't really explain why, so thank you user for providing this interesting take.
people are always misshapen, as you say, often the "red nose" meme appears, like in the image. the cacophony of colors and repulsive state of the people depicted is disorienting and offending. always disproportionately small heads to house small brains, and stupid fucking noodle arms.
when I see this artstyle it makes me instantly turn 180 degrees and walk away
Pretty smart user. I was always repulsed by this ugly art style and it seems to be everywhere where. Makes sense it feels very propagandistic underneath
based topic. no doubt this topic will get picked up by some lazy journo who will write about how being anti-flat illustration is alt-right etc. my opinion is that it requires no real skill. it is for human robots to do illustration jobs to a brief which include no room for art or expression. it's about hitting the brief in quick time when you have no creative style, basically NPCstrator
Aaron Ramirez
i'm surprised that the jigaboo made it past the committee
Bro you need to lay off the academic analysis for a moment.
Leo Lewis
now what
Hudson James
Don't do that. Don't fucking do that. This is actually an intelligent post for once instead of nigger tits and "he/she is right, you know" bullshit.
Aiden Murphy
You dont be fucking with the Infographics Show on YouTube!!!
Grayson Turner
bump
Benjamin Cruz
You don’t need to draw to be a graphic designer. The amount of skills required is already ridiculous and you want us to be illustrators as well? Need an illustrator? Hire one. It is a separate skill set and takes thousands of hours to develop, with no guarantee you will be good
Cooper Adams
Deep down, every white middle/upper class leftist is inherently racist and supremacist. They view minorities as interesting distractions and their pet projects.
Xavier Watson
Reddit spacing
Xavier Gomez
>bro kys faggot this design pattern is cancer and I see it everywhere.
an even gayer extension of this is when they misshapen people to the degree of having long noodly arms and other such faggy shit
Zachary Gomez
probably just quicker and easier to make a flat design, disregarding 3d geometry, shading, depth, etc.
it meshes well with all the other bland, soulless industrial designs we see in the 21st century.
It’s more than just that, it is utterly promoted and chosen deliberately by companies. They love these blue and yellow misshapen flat people that could be any gender or race. It’s exactly what they want
Anthony Wilson
i think of this often. personally I think it’s non offensive and intentionally disgustingly cheerful to separate the conditioned from the real world
Carson Brooks
you know i'm led to the belief that the npc meme was lefty black propaganda
i'll take a shot in the dark here and guess that it was apple who started this nonsense. their marketing and designs were always "simple", and they avoid aesthetic complexity in every way, to a ridiculous degree.
Cooper Price
Why
do
you
do
this.
Eli Nelson
>SOVIET UNION
John Flores
but maybe someone more familiar with fine arts can contribute, since i'm sure apple isn't the only influence at work here
Easton Flores
Facebook and Google have been pushing this illustration style for a while.
That should tell you everything.
Matthew Scott
?
Tyler Johnson
Apple didn’t. They had silhouettes but have never used bugmen illustrations. Facebook or Google were the first, probably Google.
Nathan Green
flat design isn't exactly new though. i think apple inspired this trend of aesthetic simplicity even if the specific motifs and styles themselves are different
Egyptian art is not the same as flat design, the goal of flat design is to simplify features and make humans look non threatening. Perfect when you are trying to make blacks look cuddly when they are not
Yeah you can see this style as you go back to the progressive art of the 20th century. It's just chaotic, distorted blob people. The new development I notice is now it's more childish as well.
Jonathan Scott
take a look at Hispanic art, they utilize this depthless, flat style for everything too. i'm not sure if it's supposed to symbolize something, or if non-whites just don't know how to draw depth with the same skill as white people.
