
The Kawaiization of Product Design - avadhoot
https://vanschneider.com/the-kawaiization-of-product-design
======
everdrive
I’m not sure I’d call this “kawaii,” as that has a particular (and often
cringey) connotation.

But, there is something deeply unappealing about this style. I’m not sure I
can even describe it properly. It just reminds me of the most boring parts of
my childhood: the aesthetic of dentist office waiting rooms, and middle school
pamphlets aimed at teaching kids about sociology.

My past association with this sort of aesthetic is so innoffensively boring, I
almost can’t even stand to look at it. And, as and adult, it no longer strikes
me as just boring, but also insidious in the way that all marketing is
insidious: it promises one thing, and behind the marketing is something else.
A pleasant and inoffensive advertisement is in actuality just a regular old
business who wants your money. There’s (usually) nothing evil the business,
but of course the feeling portrayed by the marketing is a lie.

~~~
coldtea
> _I’m not sure I’d call this “kawaii,” as that has a particular (and often
> cringey) connotation._

Kawaii is great within the culture it created it (and not cringey, in fact,
cringey is a cringey neologism applied to everything these days).

But this is definitely not Kawaii - doesn't have any major kawaii
characteristics as known. Cute in some way != kawaii (which might mean "cute"
etymologically, but refers to a specific aesthetic).

Your description "middle school pamphlets aimed at teaching kids about
sociology" is spot on (at least concerning the human-like figures and color
tones).

~~~
mc32
I think you’re being too narrow in application. People exclaim kawaii
liberally —about as liberally as “oishi” for food delicious or just so-so.

~~~
everdrive
It's the eternal debate: does the term mean what it originally meant, or does
it mean what people commonly use it to mean? People will drift between
meanings.

~~~
411111111111111
And it also means something different to westeners on the internet than it
would to Japanese people. As hilarious as that is, it's nonetheless reality

------
whywhywhywhy
Literally nothing in this article could be described as "kawaii", kawaii is
meant to invoke the same feelings you'd get from looking at a cute kitten.
None of these illustrations do that or set out to do that.

"Corporate Memphis" is one way I've seen this described more accurately [0].

[0] [https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-
illustrations-l...](https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-
illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/)

~~~
fomine3
+1 as Japanese. I never heard this type of styles called as "kawaii".

------
scottishcow
This is tangential to the author's argument but it's amusing to see how the
word "kawaii" has taken a life of its own in the West.

In Japan we often make gratuitous use of English words ( _yokomoji_ , lit.
"sideways-written characters") to make things sound more interesting than they
really are, seems like it works the other way around too.

~~~
GuB-42
In France too, English words are commonly used to make things sound more
interesting, more modern.

Especially hilarious when management uses English words, often improperly,
when a perfectly adequate and commonly used French word exists.

Maybe it is a global trend all over the the world since English became the de
facto international language.

~~~
Befterriager
> In France too, [...] hilarious when management uses English words

Recently (well... back when going to the office was still a thing) I had a
meeting with a senior manager at our company. At the end of the meeting, he
grabbed his iPhone and said "I am going to take a selfie of the whiteboard"
(in French except for the word 'selfie') thinking that meant any kind of
picture.

------
js8
On a related note, I wish product designers stop to cater to beginners. That
is, stop equating easy of use and ease of use by somebody who never used the
product.

Somebody who sees the product for the first time will have very different
requirements than somebody who is seeing it every day. The latter is able to
learn some productivity tricks, that might be opaque to beginner, but make the
product actually easier to use.

~~~
AmericanChopper
I think the product designers have the right approach here. Having worked in a
lot of large corporates, you find a lot of people who are just experts in
using some over complicated piece of garbage software. If I have to attend a 3
day training seminar just to figure out the basic functionality of your app,
then I think you’ve done it wrong.

Software should make it as easy as possible for people to immediately start
doing something useful with it. Make advanced features available via the API,
and make sure logs and APM are easy to ingest. Advanced users likely won’t
have any interest in your web interface anyhow.

~~~
swiley
I’d disagree. Some things are hard and the ergonomics makes it worth a little
confusion. CAD software like xcircuit is a good example of this (although they
definitely could stand to make the save dialog a little more intuitive.)

~~~
AmericanChopper
Becoming an advanced photoshop user is difficult too. But I can still fire it
up and doing basic image editing with about 2 minutes worth of figuring-out.
Excel is almost a full RDBMS, but the basics don’t really need any training.

~~~
swiley
I don’t think excel can do joins which is a big part of the “R” in RDBMS but I
don’t use excel often so I could be wrong.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I'm fairly sure it can. It's been years - almost a decade, now! - since I've
had to use Excel for anything productive, but I vividly recall using VLOOKUP
to create what were effectively views from a SQL perspective.

------
Hokusai
> It could be just a trend, or it could be we are becoming more human, more
> childlike because we're tired of being grownups.

This conclusion completely misses the point. What has changed is what "growing
up" means. I see that many people around me in their late thirties care more
about the environment, care more about the mental health of their children,
are more playful and are better at their jobs that previous generations.

Suffering is part of adult life, that is a sad truth. But, to make life dull
and hard to look like an adult is plain wrong and inverts cause and effect. A
somber life without enjoyment does not show that you are "being a grownup". To
be playful, to enjoy life, to want to learn and grow are characteristics not
just of children but of balanced smart adults.

> Given the context of the world around us, we are searching for positivity
> and comfort, and that's why we add emojis to our spreadsheets.

Like any human being before us, like any living organism that has reproduced
on Earth to look for comfort is the natural and responsible thing to do. Do
you see lions hunting more that they need? Do you see plants growing away from
the sun? Sometimes there is trade offs and you choose the lesser evil, but
suffering when not needed is a dangerous stupid idea.

~~~
jeegsy
> A somber life without enjoyment does not show that you are "being a grownup"

Was there ever really a time when ppl thought this was what growing up meant?

~~~
diffrinse
It's the "boomer" fantasy of what _their_ parents and grandparents were doing
before them. Hence why movies in the 60s/70s began to carry anti-authority
"live your life" messages more and more until we're saturated in them at this
point generations later.

------
carrolldunham
The deformed, grotesque, inflated humanoids they use in flat design are
opposite to 'kawaii', and opposite in motivation. Instead of hitting your
instincts with a supernormal cuteness/sweetness stimulus, it's supposed to
desensitise you to 'differences' in humans. It's ideologically tinged

~~~
mdre
Yeah, I'm wondering from time to time, what's going on with the strange cult
of the small head. I've seen that illustrators call this trend 'big limbs',
but I call it 'small head'. As in 'Let's not focus on this big head of yours,
shrink your head, just go with the flow'. Get rid of your brain, your
thoughts, your personality, everyone is OK. Looks like it's the millenial's
equivalent of the boomers' large nose cartoony characters (or maybe a shitty
pastel family-friendly castrated version of Robert Crumb's body fantasies) and
it will pass. However, I think this one's still in its prime time and gonna
keep pissing me off for quite a long time. Maybe I should try harder to
propagate the style I enjoy- giant head, no body, tiny limbs.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It seems that a good chunk of the web design community went bananas on
Humaaans[0], probably because Facebook started using similar small-headed,
monstrous-limbed, absurdly deformed human caricatures. I absolutely abhore
this trend, and feel the same way you do: it deemphasizes what's truly unique
about humans - our brains, our minds, our personalities.

\--

[0] - [https://www.humaaans.com/](https://www.humaaans.com/)

~~~
mdre
Cool to see someone that shares my view. Of course it's not all black and
white. There are some illustrators who have established a name for themselves,
like Karol Banach. People like him incorporate this template for human
proportions into their trademark style, but the body elements are neatly
composed into a larger picture. It's mostly mimicking 20th century fine
painting styles. Decidedly more Picasso than Matisse. And then there are all
those poor schmucks pumping out commodity illustration. Aside from Humaans, I
think I've also seen some official guidelines for Illustration by Facebook.
This is sad. This is how the Internet got corporate. Also, there's this thing
to make process faster for the more ambitious ones:
[https://galshir.com/posea](https://galshir.com/posea)

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's an interesting app, thanks! I'm actually looking for tools for
generating properly-sized vector human figures, or even doing skeletal
animation on vector graphics.

Speaking of art style of human figures on the web, my favourite one is
[https://undraw.co/illustrations](https://undraw.co/illustrations). These are
the kind of images I'd like to see more on the web, instead of Humaaans
lookalikes.

------
yowlingcat
As other commentators have mentioned, the analogy to "kawaii" is inaccurate
and inappropriate; it's much closer to what's been termed Corporate Memphis[1]
than kawaii. Key differences:

\- Corporate Memphis uses an abridged contrast ("flat") full range palette
that is meant to a) be legible and b) not stand out. Human forms are
flattened, with intentionally minimized, abstract differentiation between
entities. This makes sense because the emphasis is on legibility and universal
visual communication, not flair.

\- Kawaii uses uses an expanded range palette with a lot of emphasis on
pastels and cel shading to create a 2.5D world that is probably aesthetically
closer to Surrealism. Kawaii human forms are caricatures, full of cartoonish
distortions. The whole point is expression, quirkiness, flair and alternate
reality building.

[1] [https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-
illustrations-l...](https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-
illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/)

------
sandov
If clay figures are the price to pay for clean, spaced user interfaces and
readable text, then bring it on.

This is the first time that I actually like a design trend in the web. Thank
god we got rid of those barely readable thin grey fonts on white backgrounds.

~~~
wirrbel
that was the worst. Don't get me started on the trend for large line-spacing
that makes text as unreadable as the duoble-spaced preprints I just refuse to
read.

~~~
m463
You have forgotten 90's web pages, not from templates and designed by edit-in-
the-browser where you can choose any color for foreground and background (and
people usually did)

------
foxyv
This reminds me of the anime series Psycho Pass. Police officers wear
holographic suits to look like theme park mascots so they don't disturb
people. Then they end up shooting criminals with a laser cannon that makes
them explode like bags of blood flashing to a boil in a microwave.

------
duncanawoods
I thought this would be more about how emojis have invaded products.

I recognise their communication value but they are aesthetic disasters
(colour, dated cartoon style, cacophony) and they are real lowest common
denominator expressions - often the equivalent of a fart noise or a “+1”. To
support emoji you hand over a huge slice of product aesthetic and expressivity
to something which in all essentials, is very childish.

I looked at reddit recently and all the emoji awards that can even apply
background animations like flames gave me the strong impression that “this is
not for adults”. For something smaller that might be a fine choice but
reddit’s opportunity seems to be much larger as the pre-eminent threaded
discussion site across all demographics and if anything I suspect longer form
discussion skews older.

~~~
mattlutze
Emoji are a native part of the vocabulary of a couple generations now. What
you might be noticing is a platform signaling that it's supporting those folks
as well.

Every Millennial is an adult, as are many Gen Z'ers, and these plus the first
all-21st century generation are going to have come to expect emoji to exist
and existed in digital spaces where emoji are a part of the jargon.

Why would it make sense for Reddit to force these people to communicate less
completely than they are used to doing?

~~~
bb123
I think it goes back a lot longer than that - humans have been using symbols
to express feelings for thousands of years. Written language is really the
child of that. Personally I think humans will always communicate via little
pictogram symbols, regardless of how perfect written communication with words
is. There is something very innate about two eyes and an upward curved line
meaning happy - and lots of similar examples. Emojis are just a form of this.

~~~
duncanawoods
True but I don’t think any pictogram language has ever been as ugly as emoji.
It’s the “programmer art” of pictograms. Brushes and carving seem to be
helpful design constraints to drive restraint, regularity and simplicity.

------
xondono
I think part of it it’s the “build your design from blocks” mentality that is
so dominant nowadays.

There’s a lot of ways to do hard aesthetics, but pretty much one way to do
kawaii (roundness, pastels, flat appearance). Joining kawaii-sh art from
different sources is way easier than joining other kinds of graphics.

I would guess that a significant part of the trend is people following the
path of least resistance.

~~~
m463
I can see the other side of "building from a theme" or "building from a
template", where you can choose a template that works for everyone, even old
people, the colorblind, or even completely blind.

It is better than the 90's web pages where people could choose any foreground
or background color, and people were free to choose yellow on green.

------
milchek
I noticed this a lot more on signs and posters when I moved to Singapore
earlier this year. Back in Melbourne, design seemed a lot more varied, but
everything here is the same style. My guess is that a lot of the signage is
from government agencies here who hire the same design teams?

Anyway, design trends come and go. We have seen this in the last couple of
decades with the heavy skeuomorphic designs found in earlier Apple products
and then later the “flat design” trend.

I’m curious what the next trend will be?

~~~
emmanuel_1234
That is one thing that I find concerning about Asia (having lived both in
Singapore and Hong Kong). Messages from various government agencies are
written and illustrated like kid books. It makes me uncomfortable that either
1. grown-ups are so infantilized that they need to be addressed like that or
2. that governments feel their grown-ups are too stupide to be talked to
normally.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I do not recall the metro warning signs in France. I do remember them in
Japan. It's because the Japanese ones were funny and draw you in to a story.

You could have the following without the pictures:
[https://pradt.co/imgs/poster/pleasedoit02.gif](https://pradt.co/imgs/poster/pleasedoit02.gif)

There's different styles to this, there's variations which are more Disney or
Anime like, what's the issue? The point is to draw attention, I don't see what
the need is for the ostensible seriousness, if it's not effective at educating
and drawing people in to your message.

~~~
janekm
I'm surprised you don't remember the Rabbit of Paris Metro:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Paris_Métro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Paris_Métro)
(maybe they changed it?)

------
type-2
Why did he decide to call it kawaiization? I don't think this kind of design
is inspired from japan, even though the rounded corners, soft color palette
can be considered "cute", they exist because they are perceived as "modern web
design". I put it in quotes but honestly I don't hate it. It is pleasing to
the eyes.

~~~
knolax
Agreed, there's no additional meaning to the world kawaii that isn't already
captured by the word cute. Actual Japanese websites look nothing like what the
author describes.

~~~
type-2
Pretty much. Though it is a very international thing, I think chinese websites
in general look more "kawaii" if we use the world like the author(?). For eg.
take look at www.ui.cn

------
motohagiography
The cute'ification of design is definitely a thing. When you think about what
something is supposed to signify, it appeals to certain aesthetic reference
points. Within a particular critical framework, all design is to signal
alignment to perceptions of power, and reflecting the ones from your customers
minds is how a product succeeds.

Personally, I find this kind of design originates in those corporate retreat
exercises where you co-operate in infantalizing play-time and people are
forced to compete to demonstrate submission and remove indicators of
individual quality or personality as "edges" that create friction to the
dynamic flow of power. In the design language, removing edges and clear lines
that might signal "either/or, black and white" thinking in the design reflects
this value of passive, liquid, flexibility - which is the opposite of
decisive, directed, or forceful aesthetics of 80's, 90's and 00's coroporate
design languages.

Compare it to the 90s-00's Italian Futurist corporate design language of some
major internet companies, which was perhaps in hindsight an unfortunate
choice, and was the polar opposite of the unthreatening startup languages of
today.

The values implicit in the design are fascinating to consider, but a critical
view of them would take the topic into more controversial territory.

------
GregarianChild
See also the recent related HN discussion [1] about "Corporate Memphis" which
is orthogonal in principle from Kawaii, but in practise often overlapping.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890877)

------
sbruno
The author uses what look like Dribbble screenshots to prove his point.
Dribbble does not represent the majority state of product designs.

~~~
karaterobot
This is an important point! Dribbble shots are usually not from actual
products, so you can't use them as evidence for a real world trend.

Another point is that you should not generalize about the design of a product
based on marketing pages. Often, the design for these pages is contracted out
to studios who don't touch the rest of the product. How often do the products
look and feel like the home page? Almost never.

Maybe this is a trivial point, but what I mean is: he shouldn't state this as
if it were a product design trend, when (if it is a trend at all) it's a
marketing trend.

------
whytaka
I think it’s really just that digital art has become so prolific and cutesy
things are just the easiest to make. Every company wanted minimalism but now
everyone looks the same so we have to garnish it with cheap art so it’s not
too minimal and now everyone is doing that.

------
tobr
Recently discussed, an article with an almost synonymous title: “On
Infantilization in Digital Environments (2015)”

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

------
Invictus0
I think the reason the cuteness is unnerving is because these sites are
selling tools. It would be weird to buy a hammer covered in some soft fuzzy
material, so why are these digital tools designed to look like children's
sites? Moreover, why do they obfuscate key product specifications and
functions in favor of vague promises of increased productivity (more goodness
as one comment said)? I think the answer is that the low hanging SAAS fruit
has mostly been taken and all the new SAAS apps have an increasing smaller
niche and therefore increasingly smaller value proposition.

------
webwielder2
By “product design” do they mean “visual design of marketing sites”?

Anyway, trends come and go. I don’t think there’s any meaning to be derived
here beyond “attractive marketing collateral is appealing.”

------
beager
> Our app designs have become soft, sweet, inoffensive. Bank interfaces use
> pastels, rounded corners and soft drop shadows to make mundane or unpleasant
> tasks more "fun.” Animojis have taken over our chats, and our productivity
> tools are starting to look like Animal Crossing.

This is the part of this that galls me the most. Weaponizing UI design as a
substitute for UX simplicity, and using that weaponized design to bluster past
the UX shortcomings of your service in your service's marketing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
"Weaponizing UI design" is a perfect description. These designs aren't meant
to be thought about, they're meant to push emotional buttons in your head.
They're meant to make you feel safe, make you shut down critical thinking, in
order to make you more receptive to the marketing message.

------
Animats
Even Apple is taking small steps in that direction. See their web site.

Until recently, Apple's design aesthetic seemed to be borrowed from Bang and
Olufsen audio gear from the 1980s. Hard-edged, stark, monochrome, good
materials, barely visible controls. Sony long had a playful look, but lost
out. Will Apple go with the playful look, or fight it? So far, Apple has
lightened up enough to ship phones that have colored cases, but no decorative
artwork.

~~~
kibibu
It's older than that. Jony Ive is/was an unabashed Braun disciple

------
voxelghost
Everything looks like clipart and templates these days.

------
_bxg1
This is a really insightful way of framing the trend. I hadn't thought about
it this way before but it makes perfect sense.

However: I think there's a more sinister aspect that's not covered in the
article. Think about how dystopian so many software products are today - the
privacy violations, the toxic social interactions, the dark patterns. It makes
_perfect sense_ that the companies behind these products would lean as hard
into kawaii as they can, to mask the bad stuff and make the user more
receptive. Who could be worried about the personal information they're giving
away when there's a cute little cartoon animal shyly asking for it?

------
satvikpendem
See related, the Dribbbilization of design (2013):
[https://www.intercom.com/blog/the-dribbblisation-of-
design](https://www.intercom.com/blog/the-dribbblisation-of-design)

~~~
omnimus
This is it more than anything. Author is complaining about cute trend comming
up that he probably dislikes yet the bigger problem is almost complete
unification of design that follows trends.

It's the maximal safe choice, ultimate lack of imagination and fear of
experimenttion. I guess makes sense business wise?

By the way its not like van Schneider (author of the article) is some kind of
daring pushing the envelope designer. He might not make things cute but
overall makes pretty trendy dribbly stuff.

------
tompccs
Arguably Google started this trend - it had a multicoloured logo, their head
office was called a "campus", they had beanbags, etc. It has defined a
generation of corporate messaging: non-threatening, childlike simplicity.
Compare and contrast companies called things like "INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
MACHINES", built at a time when corporations wanted to exude power, scale,
financial strength, and technical brilliance.

~~~
aikinai
Doesn't negate the rest of your point, but just for your information, business
parks have long been called campuses; that's not a Google or infantile thing.

------
7leafer
It's all design for hordes of mediocre cheap designers

------
knolax
I don't know what kind of art you guys grew up with, but when I was a kid all
the art I was exposed to (in cartoons and textbooks and whatnot) used
saturated colors and was shaded. This is the exact opposite of the art style I
associate with "infantilization". It's abstract and flat and uses pastel
colors, like something out of a mural.

------
lunias
Not kawaii, but good callout nonetheless. This is just what designs end up
looking like when you consider 7 billion people your target audience and want
to market to them all simultaneously. It's for everyone and also for no one;
it's soulless garbage.

------
elischiff
This talk about "kawaii" a lie meant to erase the work I did on @humansofflat
until designers canceled me:
[https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat](https://twitter.com/HumansOfFlat)

------
anotheryou
mention swiss design too maybe? [https://creativemarket.com/blog/swiss-design-
history-example...](https://creativemarket.com/blog/swiss-design-history-
examples)

It's just less soft and round

------
knolax
Author could've just called it cutification without wasting a paragraph to
explain a common loanword. It's not like these trends actually come from
Japan. Look at some of these top 20 Japanese sites[0], none of them look like
what the author's describing.

[0] [https://m.yahoo.co.jp/](https://m.yahoo.co.jp/)
[https://smt.docomo.ne.jp/](https://smt.docomo.ne.jp/)
[https://www.rakuten.co.jp/](https://www.rakuten.co.jp/)

~~~
spyckie2
The author is probably referring to a general trend in Japan where simple,
cute, slice of life ambience is becoming very popular in various media like
video games and anime.

~~~
knolax
The general trend of Kawaii things also looks nothing like the websites he's
talking about. For example, they lack the distinctive hand-drawn cartoon art
style like this site has[0].

[0] [http://www.mitchiri-neko.com/](http://www.mitchiri-neko.com/)

------
narag
I've been trying to remember where I read this word a long time ago, like
decades. Was it a well known brand? Music? Electronics? Sports?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Kawai make pianos.

Not the same as kawaii, which means "cute".

~~~
narag
Thank you. My memory is really bad. Guess who owned an upright one for a few
years.

------
aj7
I actually actively ignore this kind of marketing aesthetic. It screams
lightweight, throwaway, fake. I’m probably wrong sometimes.

------
marcusjt
"or we see a puppy and have an urge to squeeze it" \- stroke or cuddle
perhaps, but SQUEEZE?!

~~~
hellofunk
That’s actually just a natural response, have you ever seen how a child
impulsively and strongly squeezes a teddy bear?

------
annoyingnoob
Cartoon humans in advertising is a big turn off for me. Are you serious or
just playing around?

------
GoblinSlayer
Round corners, nice. Hope next they will figure out 3d buttons and how to draw
humans.

------
kgin
The kawaii style was a few years ago. It’s all about the blob people now.

------
popup21
> and our productivity tools are starting to look like Animal Crossing.

bada-bing!

------
slx26
everything is kawaii until you actually start using the products ^^

------
fxtentacle
I agree with the authors implied reason that Kawaii is a way for people to
escape reality.

It first became popular in Japan, where there is also Hikkomori (adults
refusing to leave the house), Grasseaters (young men refusing to date), and
lots of fantasy harem videos on TV.

And now that the pressure increases in western societies, we see similar
problems and similar escape mechanisms.

FYI alcohol is not accessible to people under 21 in Japan, thereby denying
them one of the most popular western stress relieve drugs.

~~~
saagarjha
> FYI alcohol is not accessible to people under 21 in Japan, thereby denying
> them one of the most popular western stress relieve drugs.

Well, it’s not supposed to be accessible to people under 21 in my state
either.

~~~
fxtentacle
Here in Germany, you can legally buy beer at 16...

~~~
kitsune_
Same here in Switzerland. Beer: 16. Wine and spirits: 18. Tobacco: No age
limit to 18 (depending on canton). Driving (car): 18. Driving (tractor): 14.
Voting: 18. Mandatory army service: 18.

