Why We Find Corporate Style Art So Dystopian

This incongruous clash of Big Tech and silly, pseudo-childlike art understandably has started to rub people the wrong way. Ironically, this style of art was designed for the very reason of being placative and inoffensive. In order to understand what exactly makes this type of art so repulsive, we need to understand how and why corporate art came to be. We must take a look at what characteristics define the style, also known as Corporate Memphis, Big Tech Art, or simply flat art, and analyze the psychological implications that make people hate it. 

Where Corporate Art Came From

The corporate art style as we know it was born in 2017 when the design firm Buck created a new and distinguishable illustration system for Facebook. The style was called Alegria, which means joyful in Spanish, since it's meant to promote a sense of jubilance through motion. The abstract nature gives it a fresh and modern look, while the chunky shapes and optimistic color palette make the illustrations appear welcoming and approachable. The vector-based design system makes the images easily replicable and simple to animate.

Since its creation, many other brands have adopted the style, including Google, YouTube, Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, and Hinge. Now, corporate art has become nearly ubiquitous in illustrations across the web to the point of redundancy.

The Characteristics of Corporate Art

Corporate art is recognizable for several key characteristics. The most recognizable features of corporate art are the curving and imbalanced figures of the characters and the elementary shapes and colors that are used. The people in the graphics are designed to be inclusive and inoffensive. They often have bizarrely colored skin in shades such as blue, purple, or pink, and their bodies are made from geometric shapes. Thus, they have no race and sometimes no gender. 

Generally, the standard build of the individuals in the style consists of a small head and torso, with long, bending arms and legs. A designer on the Buck team, Xoana Herrera, emphasizes the focus on action and emotion. “I started to draw characters that were defined by their actions…I wanted to portray that sense of joy we feel when we’re sharing things together in community.” 

Another trait of corporate art is that it’s flat and dimensionless. It’s impersonal and simplified, utilizing smooth blocks of color and lacking any texture or gradient. 

Actual people, unlike the tech giants who eagerly adopted corporate style art, however, were not so accepting of the new style. Soon, memes were made about it and it was mocked on Reddit. One of the positives of the internet, like in the case of shrinkflation, is that it provides a way for people to confirm that they're not the only ones noticing something is off.

This brings us back to the question as to why this art style, which was designed for the definitive purpose of being inoffensive, offends the viewer? At the end of the day, it's an insult to intelligence. And disturbingly, it is symbolic of corporate culture on a larger level.

Why We Dislike Corporate Art So Much

First of all, the style is overused. These images now show up on so many brands, from major ones to minor ones. After seeing it over and over again, people are, at the very least, tired of it. The upside of the style becoming redundant is that if the tech giants are paying attention, they will see that the style has lost its sheen, and the trend will be phased out. 

Secondly, and more importantly, corporate art proves how out of touch corporations are with society. The illustrations are unrealistic and abstract. At the end of the day, they exist as a marketing and branding mechanism. They look low-effort, lack objective beauty, and serve the ultimate purpose of convenience and replicability. 

On a deeper level, the simplistic nature of the illustration system reflects inauthenticity and glorifies the generic. The innocuous and nebulous figures discourage independent thought and instead promote a one-size-fits-all mindset which ultimately strips the human race of its uniqueness by trying to condense humanity into cheap graphics. 

People are annoyed with corporate style art because it makes them feel demeaned and insulted. The illustrations allude to the unsettling idea that they are meant to lull you into a state of thoughtless joy, floating in a rainbow dream world of dimensionless shapes. Creepily, the art style is meant to promote a sense of trust and well-being. This forced happiness is meant to be utopian, but is instead profoundly dystopian. 

Furthermore, looking analytically at the proportioning, we can see what Big Tech subconsciously promotes in a society. Small heads mean no independent thought, while the action-forward nature alludes to the idea we are valued most for our ability to work and produce mindlessly. Likewise, the characters have little to no facial expressions, either having simplistic features or none at all. 

Ultimately, the style is just condescending. The two-dimensional corporate style art is reminiscent of the infamous WEF line, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.” 

Like the case of virtue-signaling in marketing, once again, the art style is a distraction. Big Tech has a bad rap for being power-hungry and wants to do everything it can to counteract this image and seem friendly and benevolent. Corporations use these illustrations to seem innocent and carefree. For those who can see through it, however, this just makes Big Tech seem even more sinister and manipulative. 

Closing Thoughts

Corporate style art is the byproduct of a greater issue: the economized way in which people are viewed and valued by society. On top of being aesthetically unappealing, corporate art comes across as condescending and insulting to the intelligence of the viewer.

We have already witnessed the fall of objectively beautiful artwork in exchange for postmodern subjectivity, and with the rise of Big Tech, it was inevitable that their graphics would become mass-produced and lifeless. What’s more disturbing, however, is the dystopian removal of all humanistic traits.

However, like all trends, this too will pass. Looking at the Instagram pages of Big Tech companies, I can already see that the style is starting to evolve. The firms caught on that people had had enough and that what was once a revolutionary design system is now old news. Now, the people look more proportional and realistic, the colors more varied, and fake textures and outlines have been added in to make the graphics look more authentic, though still cartoon and unrealistic. It’s reminiscent of comic strips from children's magazines or illustrations in a children’s book.

Corporate art is important to monitor because it reflects the wider culture and ultimately shows how big corporations view their consumers. Do they view us as clear-thinking adults or as impressionable children?

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