
Why editorial illustrations look so similar these days (2019) - laurentdc
https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/
======
twalla
This is something that's been bugging me for a while that I could never put a
label on. It appears "Corporate Memphis" [1] is a popular catchall term for
this style. I think the comparison is apt because not only do they both share
an affinity for the hypercolorful and simple geometric forms - they also both
strike me as something that you can immediately place as the product of a
certain time, which is really just a nice way for saying this stuff is going
to look super dated just like the works of the original Memphis Design
Movement [2].

[1] [https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-
memphis](https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis)

[2] [https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/23/15864234/furniture-
memphis-...](https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/23/15864234/furniture-memphis-
design-ettore-sottsass)

~~~
mc32
You say is hyper colorized but elsewhere even in the article it’s claimed the
style is a bit dull...

“ The vector-based style, characterized by flat colors, simple shapes and a
pared-down color palette...”

The Industry Standard, Red Herring and Business 2.0 probably had some effect
on its taking root.

~~~
twalla
I think "simple shapes and a pared-down color palette" is actually a better
descriptor than I used. Even though the palette drawn from in both styles is
limited I think there's still a heavy emphasis on color, if that makes any
sense.

I wouldn't describe either style as dull or muted, I think in this sense the
"pared-down" palette refers to the lack of shading or gradients in many of
these designs.

------
cjohnson318
This style isn't just vector art trash using canned tools. A lot of artists
are painting this way in gouache and murals. It _looks_ simple, but that's the
effect of good composition and design. I can guarantee that this art is not
simple to create. Take procreate for a spin and let me know how it goes. If
you see this and say, gosh there's a lot of this out there, it must be mass
market garbage, then you'd be right at home with people complaining about art
nouveau 150 years ago. I don't paint in this style, but I appreciate it as
part of the zeitgeist. If you don't like it, paint something else and put it
out there for people to write articles about.

~~~
rendall
Agreed. I'm rather stunned that the sentence "Virtually anyone can produce
professional-looking artwork using illustration software and digital tools."
would be written by a professional design critic. It seems like a shockingly
naive assertion for a professional to actually commit to print.

------
goto11
Most comments are quite negative, but I think an important reason is that the
"flat" style looks pretty good on a screen and feels "native" to the digital
media in a way watercolors or pencil or oil paint just doesn't. It is
basically the natural evolution from simple icons. Sure most of it is generic
and derivative, but this is true for any style.

It is typical that a new media try to emulate older, more prestigious media.
Digital lack the physicality, so there was a long infatuation with trying to
make it look more "physical" \- shadows, texture and so on. Now it seems the
tide have turned and print magazines try to look more digital.

~~~
pcurve
other mediums can look good on screen too.

the biggest reasons is skills and cost.

Very few people can actually do digital watercolor, pencil, oil, collage, etc.
well. Those take years and years of training.

Flat illustrations are no picnic, but they're much more forgiving to novice.

------
Camillo
> The answer boils down to three T’s: technology, taste, and terrible pay.

I don't think technology has much to do with it. Digital illustration has been
around for decades now, and technological improvements have made it easier to
make complex, sophisticated art and reproduce all traditional techniques. So,
neither the timeline nor the trend match.

The pay, sure, everyone always wants to make more money. I believe it's a
factor. But it's been half a century since the 1970s. The style transition
seems to have been too abrupt to be driven by long-term salary trends.
Besides, it's hard to believe that the people making Corporate Memphis for,
say, Facebook are so severely underpaid that no other style is feasible. In
fact, if you have the money to pay your designers more, wouldn't you want to
have them do something different, to stand out?

So it's taste, then. But I don't think it's a pure accident of fashion. This
style aligns very well with the cultural moment: the infantilization of
academic/corporate/consumer culture, the triumph of safety and risk-aversion,
an antipathy towards the (conventionally attractive) human form, and an ever
more homogenized culture facing an ever more heterogeneous public. If you were
a designer trying to capture the zeitgeist, could you do better?

------
gorgoiler
I have a real yearning to see some early 1990s corporate illustration now. It
seemed like back then the motif of large framed doll people made of simple
pencil shaded 3D effect geometry was very common.

I can even picture in my mind’s eye a Netgear hub being packaged in a box
showing two generic figures skipping over some hillscape, achieving corporate
goals together. Maybe even Windows 3.11 used the style?

I have no idea how to find an example though. Any help would be appreciated.

~~~
quink
I know precisely the kind of style you mean. I just googled <random
technology> and 1997 and found this here cover pretty immediately:
[https://www.amazon.com/Cisco-IOS-Configuration-
Fundamentals-...](https://www.amazon.com/Cisco-IOS-Configuration-Fundamentals-
Systems/dp/1578700442)

Probably not what you had a hazy memory of but probably very close. I love
this style too.

Edit: It's one of my favourite non-digital aesthetics in computing history,
together with some of the stuff DEC did.

Edit 2: Another minor reason I'm somewhat familiar with that style is because
MUMPS vendor InterSystems kept some variants of it around for longer than
reasonable: [https://www.slideserve.com/broderick/introduction-to-
intersy...](https://www.slideserve.com/broderick/introduction-to-intersystems-
ensemble-and-the-tie) which I just adore.

And just for another search, Microsoft 1996 yields this here thumbnail:
[https://i.imgur.com/wlr0U6j.png](https://i.imgur.com/wlr0U6j.png) for this
video here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gMC_uFdcWE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gMC_uFdcWE)

~~~
gorgoiler
Brilliant!

~~~
quink
And a quick search for an old Netgear manual:
[https://www.manualslib.com/manual/298986/Netgear-
Nd508.html#...](https://www.manualslib.com/manual/298986/Netgear-
Nd508.html#product-ND520)

------
Fricken
If you look through the last few centuries of illustration, it has always been
subject to fashionable trends that are informed by the processes used to
create and publish illustrations in their respective eras. There have always
been distinctive and original illustrators, but the other 90% are usually
playing to style trends. Ultimately concept is king and the style is
malleable.

These days illustrations are much more commonly produced with fast turnaround
time and smaller budgets. The print industry ain't what it used to be.
Illustrations are now viewed on multiple platforms and have to be readable and
graphic when only a couple inches wide while (in some cases) still looking
good on a magazine rack.

I would say illustration went through it's most diverse and creative phase in
the late 90s up to the iphone. Before Steve Jobs killed the print industry
there was just such a rich tapestry of career illustrators making a
comfortable living producing polished and distinctive work.

~~~
goto11
Surely the golden age of illustration was the 1950's. After that photography
largely took over in magazines, advertisements, posters etc.

~~~
paganel
For me the golden era is the 1930s and its art deco styling, something like
this [1] or this [2]

[1]
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/62/b9/ce62b9cf9c349ea81018...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/62/b9/ce62b9cf9c349ea8101827f1535e4001.jpg)

[2]
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3c/67/d5/3c67d54d2fe785c773d2...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3c/67/d5/3c67d54d2fe785c773d29c6058517e23.jpg)

~~~
close04
Let's not forget the "almost '30s" (1927) Metropolis movie poster [0]. One of
the most iconic illustrations and my personal favorite.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)#/media/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_\(1927_film\)#/media/File:Metropolis_\(German_three-
sheet_poster\).jpg)

------
coldcode
Art always changes, and art critics always complain when it does, and complain
when it doesn't. Illustration is simply art on a shoestring. No one is able to
afford a Normal Rockwell or hire David Hockney given publishing makes so
little revenue today, so finding a way to make a graphical point quickly is no
less an artistic achievement. Technology allows today things that no artist
from the past could do, and there is no reason to not take advantage of it. At
one point painting with oils was new, painting in many colors was new,
printing in color was new, even thinking of art in the abstract was new; so
art changes to take advantage.

------
bryanrasmussen
I don't think that Le Monde illustration looks quite like the other pictures.
That is to say I can imagine someone making some crudely drawn approximation
of the other pictures and then getting them to snap into place as required but
the Le Monde has details I think would need more than snapping.

At any rate I'm not sure if the sameness of style is all down to lack of
talent, there has been sameness of style in past generations as well.

------
codesections
> A US-based editorial illustrator earns an average of $47,000 a year… Dismal
> pay isn’t just an American phenomenon.

Median income for the United States is under $35,000. I understand (through
personal experience!) how much cost of living differs in major cities, but
illustrators are not limited to living in those expensive locations.

In some ways, the shift in pay seems to reflect the change in location as much
as anything else – at one point, illustrators for NY media basically needed to
live in NYC, but that is no longer the case and pay seems to be adjusting.

~~~
claudeganon
> but illustrators are not limited to living in those expensive locations.

Like tech, illustration is as much about networking as anything else,
especially with art directors at the outlets that pay well. Most of those are
in NYC, although SF is emerging as a new hub because of how much art tech
companies now use.

If you get really big or a highly-paid teaching job, maybe you can move out to
Connecticut or Rhode Island. Otherwise, you need to put in face time with your
peers and at industry social gatherings if you want to get work. There’s even
a dues-paying club for this glad-handing:

[https://www.societyillustrators.org/](https://www.societyillustrators.org/)

------
satvikpendem
What do people think of services like www.undraw.co, or www.humaaans.com? I
like them, even if they are overused.

I think we're beginning to see an evolution of this style to start using more
gradients, as we did about 10 years ago:

\- community -
[https://dribbble.com/shots/11051166-community](https://dribbble.com/shots/11051166-community)

\- Miracle -
[https://dribbble.com/shots/10836129-Miracle](https://dribbble.com/shots/10836129-Miracle)

\- Together -
[https://dribbble.com/shots/10804716-Together](https://dribbble.com/shots/10804716-Together)

------
kuschku
I’d also count the old (2013) Google Now headers into this:
[https://forum.xda-
developers.com/showpost.php?p=37322378&pos...](https://forum.xda-
developers.com/showpost.php?p=37322378&postcount=98)

They’re the same kind of illustrations, and a relatively early example, being
from 2013.

------
crazygringo
It's good to finally know what name to call this style -- Corporate Memphis!

But besides the flat aesthetic having started on phones over the past decade-
plus, I think there are two key factors the article hints at but doesn't
really address directly.

1) If you're illustrating on your computer, there's something more inherently
(although subjectively) "honest" about flat design -- it looks like computer
vector shapes. Using brushes in Photoshop/Procreate is a throwback, "fake",
simulated. If digital is the medium, then basically either pixel art or vector
art are the two "most authentic" expressions of that medium.

2) Economically, shapes in Illustrator/etc. are infinitely easier to tweak. If
the editor wants you to adjust your image, you might be able to spend just 10
minutes making the changes, rather than 6 hours drawing/painting up a totally
new version. (Yes I know painting programs can support layers and other fancy
things to help, but it's still going to be harder.)

Also, because flat art requires a good eye but very little learned "technical"
technique (as opposed to, say, watercolor or oil painting), a lot more people
can do it (just keep tweaking the shapes until it looks right), and it's very
easy to achieve consistency across images, even if made by totally different
people.

~~~
satvikpendem
Regarding 1, skeumorphism looks fake, because it is, since we're not using
physical controls on a digital device anymore, so the metaphors are not as
useful. Vector art, as you say, is less physical but conforms to digital
devices better. Now neumorphism is up and coming, but I think it still looks
bad, for the same reasons as skeumorphism.

------
iamben
The pay thing is pretty interesting. Whilst it's really obvious here (and
often taken advantage of), I think you find it everywhere people _love_
something.

I think most people start drawing because something in them won't let them
stop. They genuinely love it. Same with making music, etc etc. That moment you
realise someone will _pay_ you to do something you love (and will do for free)
is completely mind blowing. Unfortunately you also end up wrestling with the
"I'd do this for free, so how little will I accept," knowing full well that
there's a kid down the street who draws really well and lives with their
parents and to whom £75 is the equivalent to 2 days stacking shelves in a
supermarket...

I found this with web stuff, especially early in my career (and before
templates were everywhere). I really needed the money, but "the son of my
friend's dentist will do it for £XYZ" and you end up working for less than
minimum wage because you're not old enough to know better - plus you tell
yourself you "love doing it enough" to do it free anyway, and it's "all
experience".

------
claudeganon
As someone who has done commercial illustration for some of the big outlets,
it’s strictly a numbers game. You can’t get enough work if your style is too
distinct, or at least, not enough work consistently to make ends meet.

Outlets like the NYTimes still do employ talented illustrators with distinct,
innovative styles. Just look at this drawing of Bill Gates by Connor
Willumsen:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/technology/bill-gates-
vir...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/technology/bill-gates-virus-
conspiracy-theories.html)

But it’s not the kind of work that’s centered by these publications.

Anecdotally, and from what I’ve read about the history of the profession, this
stems from art direction not having as much independence from editors as they
once had. Editors used to hire art directors with the intent of respecting and
deferring to their taste and expertise. Now, they override and meddle,
thinking themselves capable of directing an overall “vision” without domain
knowledge or really even taste.

------
twomoretime
>it’s highly possible to make a living as an illustrator without learning how
to draw in the classical sense.

I've been feeling for a while that this is the case for most democratized
media - the bar has been lowered across the board, and now average Joe
potentially has access to an audience with little to no vetting.

And I think this has drastic consequences for society. When our most popular
media are chosen by majority they are effectively a "lowest common
denominator", and when such media begins to dominate our attention (say,
everyone's watching vloggers on YouTube), we as a society are less able to
recognize merit, not just in arts, but in corporate and political contexts,
too. Instead all judgements become determined by charisma and we spiral into
idiocracy.

This isn't about snobbery. It's about refinement of technique, of work _as_
art, which is the clear and apparent difference between these bland magazine
covers and classical art. Talent is not a replacement for knowledge and
practice.

~~~
jp555
people have been saying this for thousands of years.

~~~
twomoretime
Compare publishing a book 100 years ago to publishing a book now. I can write
literally whatever I want and self publish.

Before there was more implicit vetting to all of the media we consumed. That
people were talking about it being easier a thousand years ago only suggests
that it has been true for a long time.

You cannot deny that it is easier than ever in history to publish information
or art. And if you track the progression of technology you'll see that those
people a thousand years ago weren't necessarily wrong. Starting with the
invention of writing, then ink, then the printing press.....and now the
internet.

~~~
jp555
“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing
a book.”

― Cicero

------
spodek
When photography made realism trivial to achieve over a century ago, painters
responded with alternatives, like impressionism.

Illustration overlaps with art, though isn't the same, but people who want to
express themselves will create new ways that separate them from people who
just use new technology that makes making eye-catching things easier.

------
macinjosh
This has been bugging me for months. You see this style everywhere and I
wondered if the illustration world was down to just one artist or if it just
lost originality. At least for use in marketing and branding I think it’s
embarrassing to just do what everyone else is doing. How do you ever stand
out?

~~~
system2
You can't stand out when 100 online articles are published by each SEO driven
online magazine. You can't spend time to be original. Content goes away so
rapidly and these illustrations are lost in the SEO oblivion. Blame the SEO
tactics and consumers. No time to be original, no time to create once a very
long article with hyper quality illustrations.

~~~
tiborsaas
For me personally, Quanta magazine and Nautilus stand out with their unique
style. Wired is also pretty distinct

------
joosters
You have to admire the chutzpah of the author, who bemoans the dwindling pay
for illustrators, yet illustrates their own article with a picture from a $10
subscription service. Well played!

~~~
arkitaip
They are literally using the image to illustrate their point.

~~~
joosters
No, they are just being hypocritical. Was their story unbelievable without
their own use of low-budget artwork? If not, why then did they feel the need
to also underpay artists themselves?

------
weakfish
Interesting, that’s a thing I’ve never consciously noticed but now I am
wondering how I didn’t...

------
WoahNoun
This is similar to the thin-line animation / thick-line animation art style in
cartoons. The push for efficiency and a quick turn-around has turned towards
more simplistic art styles, for better or worse.

------
troughway
If you want an easier time tracking whatever latest fad is out there, you can
look at the home page of Dribbble.

Everyone doing the same art style is some peak creative work right there.

------
amelius
I think this is related to:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490089)

------
raindropm
It’s just that, a trend. It comes and will go eventually, and new trend arise,
like it always did in the past.

------
martyvis
The very matter-of-fact education channel, Kurzgezagt, uses this style. I
imagine partly because of the speed and ease of creation of the videos, but
also for the unambiguous and direct capability in conveying information.
[https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt](https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt)

~~~
GuB-42
A good side effect of that style is that their videos look great even at very
low quality settings.

~~~
zimpenfish
Which I'd assume is part of the reason people are choosing that art style for
articles - when you don't know what people are going to be viewing your image
on, a limited bold colour palette with bold shapes is probably a fair bet for
"yep, still works" on most devices.

------
billfruit
Perhaps an alternative style, roughly painted watercolours as seen here in
Columbia Journalism Review
[https://www.cjr.org/special_report/what_were_reading.php](https://www.cjr.org/special_report/what_were_reading.php)

------
j4_hnews
Perhaps it's a fast turn-around time thing? You want to hijack capitalize on
news cycle with an article that gets clicks ... you need an eye grabbing
graphic within hours. This style is the path of lease resistance.

------
projektfu
Design trends don’t seem to coexist for long. One becomes dominant, quickly
everyone grows tired of it, a new, quirky one comes along that gets traction,
cycle repeats.

~~~
projektfu
Examples include de Stijl, Art Deco, the photorealistic 40s, googy, the
bicolor 60s, the glamorous 70s.

------
xenihn
I really enjoy the vector-based style. Shape-based illustrations are really
pleasing to me for some reason.

~~~
system2
It is more resistant to image compression, maybe that's why.

------
whytaka
I tire of this style but what I mean to say is I'm tired of almost all new
art. Of photography, of music, of visual, architectural, of design in general.
The over-abundance of art and design has dulled my tastes and I can't help but
see the same things everywhere, over and over. Where I see quality, I can't
help but see pretension, commercial intent, and fakery.

------
cco
My friends and I refer to this as FDP, Flat Disproportionate People, and it is
_everywhere_!

------
mirimir
Huh. Cartoons went that way, decades ago :(

~~~
the_af
The aesthetics of Dexter's Laboratory or Samurai Jack are superb. The latter
in particular is a work of art, even experimental at times (as well as fun!).
So I welcome this in cartoons.

~~~
Kye
Taste is subjective. I could never get used to them. Some people say things
like "bad" or "ugly" when what they really mean is "not for me." It's okay to
have different tastes in art. The world would be a dull place if everyone
liked the same things.

~~~
mirimir
I was referring to ones with simply shaped body parts that don't articulate,
but merely shift. They just scream "cheaply made".

~~~
ingenieros
You are referring to the infamous: "CalArts Style"
[https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/22/17381380/thundercats-
roar-...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/22/17381380/thundercats-roar-cartoon-
network-style-steven-universe)

~~~
the_af
I'm afraid I disagree with internet outrage in this case. I see nothing wrong
with CalArts style. It's a fashion. In time it will give way to other
fashions. Old cartoons tended to look in a similar visual style too.

I don't get "outrage" over cartoons.

I like the style of those new Thundercats. I like the old ones too. I like the
style of the new She-Ra. I liked old He-Man and She-Ra too.

I just... I just can't make myself say I like My Little Pony. Sorry, my open-
mindedness has limits :P

------
abrkn
Humans of flat[1] have been documenting this for some time

[https://twitter.com/humansofflat](https://twitter.com/humansofflat)

~~~
gurkendoktor
It's a shame his tweets are protected - is this some form of Twitter ban?

This account was doing a good job tracking the way humans are depicted in tech
illustrations. It breaks my heart that absolutely no company is safe from
deformed vector humans anymore:

[https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2020/04/08/keep-learning-
and...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2020/04/08/keep-learning-and-teaching-
with-jetbrains/)

------
contingencies
Vector art can be nice. Late Picasso is universally admired, and posterism,
Bauhaus, and other minimalist art movements are often praised for
utilitarianism, efficiency and succinctness. However, viewing the _New Yorker_
cover mentioned in the comments, a commenter noted the founder of the magazine
might roll over in his grave to see such visual simplicity afront what was
conceived as a sophisticated metropolitan publication. I was then amused to
learn that neither the founder (born in a prospector's cabin in Aspen,
Colorado) nor his first wife (who funded the thing, and was born in Missouri)
were either born or bred New Yorkers. Apparently, New Yorkers are so convinced
of their cultural affinities and the superiority thereof, that they neglect to
notice they've been had.

