Amaya Crichton GMD When I was young, I used to watch a lot of YouTube. That was before anybody used their real name online. It was a phenomenon we tend to forget about: the internet used to encourage anonymity and individuality. Some of the most popular creators went by pseudonyms: MissGlamorazzi, DanIsNotOnFire, Allthatglitters21. That has all changed, and the trend of going by a quirky, fun name has passed. Now the channel names are: Ingrid Neilson, Daniel Howell, Elle Fowler. There was the same phenomenon happened with social media: MySpace pages were creative potholes- you could change and manipulate your heart out, adding music and custom HTML. Today’s social media landscape is very different- we have little to no control over the personality of our social media- it has become a huge conglomerate of simplified, clean websites. (Smith, 2020) Like Ernie Smith states in his article (2020), old social medias allowed you “take a piece of the internet land and make it your own”, sites like Geocities and MySpace get mocked today because of their often ugly looks, but these sites were some of “the most important and fundamental for digital creativity”. Suddenly teenage girls could decorate their MySpace page with hearts and glitter and smiley faces the same way that they were decorating their lockers and book bags. Of course, there was a reason for this shift in the internet- let’s not glamourize too much. For Youtube, they tried to control nasty commenters by encouraging less anonymity, linkining to their Google + profiles. For MySpace, the customised HTML was poorly done by the users (that usually didn’t know much about coding), and they would undoubtedly freeze-up web browsers due to deformed coding, or as a result of users placing high-bandwidth rudiments in their profiles—such as video, graphics, and flash. Also, by making clean, simple interfaces and experiences made it more accessible for translations for other countries and usage for people not so in-tune to the digital landscape. So there was definitely a practical reasoning behind the ‘loss of individuality’ online, but there is an element of loss: Jay Hoffman puts it best: MySpace was “ rough around the edges, but arguably, so was the web. “No one knew what it was going to be, and in this hazy, undefined territory many felt dare to surface their passions, no matter how minute or narrow” I can sympathise with the push towards Anti-Design, it’s a push back to a world that was less clean-cut, and nostalgically chaotic. In terms of my area of expertise, branding, I can see the frustration with this area too, aka: The Sans serif invasion. Brands have stripped their personality and individuality to appeal to a ‘cleaner’, ‘sleeker’ look- and I’m guilty of pushing this too. Around 2017-2018, it’s as if brands decided uniqueness was a handicap. It’s the same counterargument for the simplification of the web, but it just becomes a soulless swarm of look-alike brand iconography. Some theorise that this movement towards minimalism will end soon- it was more of an austere social response to the 2010 recession, but it seems have to have taken a tight hold of the industry. (Sienkiewicz, 2020) In the last branding & packaging internship I last worked at they were approached by a heritage brand to revamp their ancient packaging that they had hardly updated from the 60s. The immediate reflex is to simplify and cut out the dated elements. But maybe we should keep that banner and the clashing colours, and cool little icons that nobody uses anymore! I felt like it had so much potential to tap into them, to tweak them for a more modern market, but keep the ‘soul of the brand’ intact. Having these more ancient elements could be played as a strength rather than a weakness, making them stand out from all the modern sans-serif brands. I’m not sure what happened with that project, but I do feel like it’s reflective of the industry now, too keen to so-call ‘modernize’ packaging and branding, until they all look the same. And perhaps not everyone needs to implement the chaos and jarring nature of Anti-Design, but elements of it. I think it’s becoming painfully clear that we need more spice back into design: everything is sans serif and facebook-clean, and we can learn from breaking down all the rules. Just because sans serif is what we now consider ‘modern’, doesn’t mean that the more rudimentary design choices (implemented in Anti-Design, for example) are not good enough for today’s standards. Take Bon Mamman for example: I love that they’ve kept their handwritten logo for so long. Bring back handwritten logos! There’s almost this unspoken rule that you never, ever, handwrite anything- everything is clean cut Adobe software when it comes to type and iconography. (Whitney, 2017 )
Why? Maybe Anti-Design allows us to look closer at these unspoken ‘rules’ in design by breaking them down completely first. Sources: Kerr, D. (2012) YouTube gently prods users to go by their real names Available at: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/youtube-gently-prods-users-to-go-by-their-real-names/ (Accessed: 27.11.21). Smith, E. (2020) No room for design. Available at: https://tedium.co/2020/07/14/social-media-customization-failings/ (Accessed: 27.11.21). Bourton, L (2021) Privacy friendly, customisable and no algorithms: An 18-year-old recreates a new functioning version of MySpace Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/tibush-spacehey-digital-270421 (Accessed: 27.11.21). Obirek, S (2017) Let’s talk about anti-design. Available at: https://blog.prototypr.io/lets-talk-about-anti-design-ea59798e0791 (Accessed: 27.11.21). Jamieson, R. (2016 )The New Wave of Anti-design Magazines Will Question Your Sense of Taste—and That’s a Good Thing. Available at: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-new-wave-of-anti-design-magazines-will-question-your-sense-of-taste-and-thats-a-good-thing/ (Accessed: 27.11.21). Whitney, A. (2017) A Definitive Ranking of 23 Bonne Maman Flavors. Available at: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/best-bonne-maman-jams-reviewed (Accessed: 27.11.21). Sienkiewicz, R (2020) Why do so many brands change their logos and look like everyone else?. Available at: https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-look-like-everyone-else (Accessed: 27.11.21).
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