{"id":1234,"date":"2023-12-09T13:31:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T13:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2023-12-11T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T13:34:55","slug":"are-we-losing-color-all-logos-are-starting-to-look-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/2023\/12\/09\/are-we-losing-color-all-logos-are-starting-to-look-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Losing Color? All Logos Are Starting To Look The Same."},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Chloe Gordon<\/span><\/h3>\n

There\u2019s an oceanic push and pull to the\u00a0trends\u00a0within the design industry. Or, in design terms, there\u2019s a constant cycle of\u00a0copy-paste ideology. Recently, I\u2019ve noticed a new stylistic trend that\u2019s been overwhelming the app icons populating my phone background. And it\u2019s colorless.<\/p>\n

The second my Twitter app pivoted away from its bright blue bird logo to an industrial black and white \u201cX,\u201d I noticed that the rest of my home screen was riddled with a similar black-and-white design style.<\/p>\n

Yes, it took the melodramatic change of one app for me to clock the pervasiveness of this trend, but now I can\u2019t unsee it: we\u2019re in a colorless era. I\u2019ve always been interested in the theoretical design pendulum of trends shifting from one extreme to another, but I never thought that black and white design would displace color.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cTo consumers, black and white branding can say, \u2018this is an established company\u2019\u2014 it\u2019s kind of a power move to move into an all black and white space, or even to start with one,\u2019 shared Isa Segalovich, a graphic designer, multimedia artist, and writer for Hyperallergic. \u201cSmaller brands often rely on colors to distinguish themselves from the noise\u2014 once you have an enormous corporation, you can shed those colors and say, \u2018We don\u2019t need these anymore to stand out. Everyone knows what an apple with a bite taken out of it means.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The TikTok app logo design was a pioneer of this trend, as one of the first social media platforms to embrace the stark aesthetic. Sure, there\u2019s a subtle pop of pink and blue behind the brand\u2019s logo, but the overall black-and-white design projects a sense of sophistication to an app that didn\u2019t start out with much. And then, more recently, there\u2019s Threads\u2014 Zuckerberg\u2019s latest attempt to take over the internet\u2014 which touts yet another flat and austere black and white logo. Not long after Threads was released, Twitter stripped down to X, and our phones got even darker. Many others are already on the black-and-white logo bandwagon as well, including Uber, BeReal, and the popular video editing app CapCut.<\/p>\n

X has been the final, most egregious straw for designers being nudged into a colorless space in the tech world, but the removal of color has already been taking over other industries outside of tech-based design. A study referenced in a recent\u00a0Arch Daily\u00a0article has revealed that vibrant tones are being used far less across the board, sending the world into a grayer state. The investigation also found that many more cars had previously been spangled in vivid hues than in the present day, while now an increasing number are coated in silver, black, and white. This same pattern is prevalent in household interiors as well: the bold colors that once adorned finishes, decorative items, and furniture up until the mid-20th century have undergone a gradual fading over time. In fact, people are now being mocked for their \u201cMillennial Grey\u201d interiors.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But is a lack of color necessarily a bad thing? Let\u2019s investigate. One could argue that simplifying branding in this way allows the brands themselves to take a step back and let the platforms flourish through their content.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, X, Threads, and TikTok are about the content,\u201d Alex Center, Founder of\u00a0CENTER, told me. \u201cThe product is the people: people\u2019s creations, ideas, words, and videos. The brands serve as a house or museum, and I think of many museums as platforms. If you consider it, museums\u2019 identities are typically black and white. The walls are white, and the typography and some of the branding are minimal. And that\u2019s very purposeful because those places and those brands aren\u2019t meant to overshadow. They\u2019re intended to provide a pedestal, platform, house, or canvas for the art. And in the case of those brands, specifically X and TikTok, the product itself is made by people. That is why people go there; it\u2019s the people that make up the color, if you will. So I think black and white is just a way to sort of get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suppose brands, specifically content-sharing-based brands, shift away from color\u2014 an easily recognizable and ownable design element. In that case, they\u2019ll have to use typography, shapes, and patterns to define their brand through visual language. When color is no longer the driving force of design, something else will become the differentiating factor. X, for example, has already re-released its black and white app logo design as one with a grunge-y, almost peeled texture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot about trends in design\u00a0and our direct reaction to the thing that preceded them,\u201d continued Center. \u201cWhen we think about the more maximalist, more textured, and colorful world of the \u201890s, the pendulum swung towards minimalism in the 2000s, stripping back a lot of the excess, which led to what people call blanding. And a lot of that was also so that things could get scaled down in size so that when you\u2019re looking at a logo the size of a penny on your phone, some textures don\u2019t scale very well. I\u2019ve been watching this over the last five years; there was a move towards doing things that are more expressive, more chaotic, less precious, and more fun, and that does sometimes involve textures, chromes, shadows, and things that are bringing a little bit more personality to brands. Much of that is happening, but I think it relates to how brands can differentiate themselves outside of color.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nImage by Sriya Choppara using Icons8<\/p>\n

While we\u2019re just now at the tipping point of this trend completely taking over app logo designs, not all brands are turning toward black-and-white design.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther brands seem like they\u2019re diving into bright colors even more\u2014 I\u2019m thinking of all the companies that are really leaning into the \u2019Corporate Memphis<\/a>\u2019 style,\u201d offered Segalovich. \u201cSome pharma brands, for example, and medical service industries in general can\u2019t afford to look as sleek and powerful as a tech brand. They have to maintain a semblance of approachability and trust. Food brands are retaining their colors as well. I think they rely on that pop of color to indicate \u2018color,\u2019 \u2018freshness,\u2019 and \u2019flavor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So, if you want to stand out in tech design right now, inject your logo with neon colors\u2014 as we all know, going against the grain is a great strategy for making a splash. Plus, as creative beings at our core, humans will always crave at least a pop of color, even if the apps we\u2019re currently using say otherwise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Are We Losing Color? All Logos Are Starting To Look The Same. \u2013 PRINT Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Chloe Gordon There\u2019s an oceanic push and pull to the\u00a0trends\u00a0within the design industry. Or, in design terms, there\u2019s a constant cycle of\u00a0copy-paste ideology. Recently, I\u2019ve noticed a new stylistic trend that\u2019s been overwhelming the app icons populating my phone background. And it\u2019s colorless. The second my Twitter app pivoted away from its bright blue bird […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":1235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international.binus.ac.id\/graphic-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}