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Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

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.

It's a bit like 'nobody gets fired for buying IBM/McKinsey' etc...no one challenges product managers and marketing when yet another adobe illustrator generated Memphis style brand identity & 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.

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...no one has the courage to think differently...

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.

People manage "coolness" effectively for upward mobility integrate the unusual into something that's mostly mainstream - have a leather jacket or a quirky haircut or whatever. I'll spend time at industrial music festivals where no one expects to get but that's a decision and not the sort that anyone should expect a business to make.

(also, you'd do well to avoid the multiculturalism issue)

>with multi cultural inclusive visual banality

Lumping in cultural inclusivity with your critique is quite revealing. There's nothing in the article or about this style of illustration that hints at cultural values, why include it in the tirade?

Anti-racism is on trend this year.

I think it'll stay for next year too, considering how many years anti-racism has been on trend.

Racialization - making everything about racial characteristics and pitting races against each other - is what has been 'on trend' recently and the world is a poorer place for it. Anti racism has been around forever and always should be, because drawing attention to and excluding people due to their race is completely unacceptable in liberal democracy merit based societies.

I don't see how putting people with darker skin in art could possibly be seen as "pitting races against each other". Would the artstyle be improved if it only depicted white people?

No.

The pictures in the article include skin tones such as purple and fuschia.

To me this visual style screams:

“Of COURSE we’re totally ok with…those people we cannot correctly enumerate, even superficially. That doesn’t mean we’d include anything too controversial like those <insert racial epithet here>‘s.”

To each their own, I guess. At least they’re trying?

That’s actually not what racialization means. Racialization is the creation of race as a social construct. “Racial characteristics” aren’t fixed; the Nazis considered Jewish people a “race” despite what they looked like.

Race isn’t a real thing. It’s something we made up because it was a justification for why it was ok to oppress people with the characteristics we dislike (we tried enslaving people with lighter skin; turns out they were able to escape and blend in with the population).

@wayoutthere In sociology racialization/ethnicization is ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such.

You will find lots of groups of people who aren't happy about being categorized then defended or attacked by people who are 'speaking for them'.

The obvious current example is the overwhelmingly white US #BLM movement. If you go to a California black neighborhood and talk to people they are v suspicious of BLM's motives. Another new one is the latest acronym #AANHPI (Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander).

I don't enjoy being categorized, pigeon holed and criticized like any other sane person but we appear to be in the midst of a mania for people speaking on behalf of others to push their own agendas.

I heard Tulsi Gabbard (an'#AANHPI POC') use the term racialization of everything recently and think she is sensible and spot on with her one love messaging and pointing out the endless divisions currently being created in societies.

Regarding slavery, I'm sure you're aware there are more slaves in Africa now than there were in the brief era when european and US maritime merchants bought slaves off slavers along with other 'products'? The current specious rewriting of history to imply slavery was invented by colonial white people is so far off base it is a huge danger to society and ignores today's realities. It is also a powerful tool for feeding racialization paranoias.

> If you go to a California black neighborhood and talk to people they are v suspicious of BLM's motives.

Have you done this? I live in a majority black neighborhood but not in California and I talk to my neighbors. I have heard a lot of skepticism and hostility towards _the organization calling itself by that name_. But not towards the movement itself or the phrase it uses to represent itself.

It’s a talking point from the right I’ve been hearing recently, along with “there were more slaves in Africa than the US”. It’s just more whataboutisms to distract from the utter lack of coherent policy from that side of the US political spectrum.

Do you seriously think there were more slaves in the USA than in Africa?! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

The person you're replying to did not at any point say that.

What he said was that deflecting criticism of slavery in North America by mentioning slavery in Africa is an attempt to mislead by distraction, i.e., whataboutism. Yes, there were horrible things done elsewhere; but that does lessen the horrible things done in the USA in any way.

I have done this, yes. Your point is well taken: no question there is support for less racism towards black people (including racism amongst black peoples) but there is often deep suspicion about political motives of movements, from the black power 70's to the current Marxist BLM leadership.

Many POC are right wing of course, an inconvenient truth for people who like to think we live in a world of blue (good) versus Red (bad).

I see representation as a positive thing, but it's definitely part of the style.

I was an art director and a creative director last century - mine was not a tirade, more observation of cowardly corporate clients.

Regarding 'multi cultural inclusive visual banality' this is a cultural low tide that is dropping all boats IMO: portraying everyone as mediocre little personas with cute skin colors and different simplified costumes like a cast of playmobile people.

I think it's more ultitarian than that. Companies have traditionally got what they need by using these conventions.

Hopefully that will change, because it sure is boring.

I wonder perhaps too if the more prestigious resumes start coming from companies that embrace these trends, further reinforcing them across industry.

When I’m trying to do computer tasks, I want to get them done, not decipher some design wonks metaphor and hyperbole.

You want thinking different? Try trotting out a line that doesn’t start out like an old man pissed at them kids for not being as competent as folks were “back in his day.”

The whole point of modern logistics is to simplify them so we can maximize time for ourselves instead of flogging the profit chant of last generations rubes seeking Valhalla.

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