Some people love antique furniture and houses because of their beautiful, ornate designs. If someone were to compare a bookshelf from 1923 with one from today, the bookshelf today would look boring and cheap. Unfortunately, furniture is not the only thing facing a downgrade.
Minimalism aims to avoid excess by using limited materials, neutral colors and simple forms while still creating an interesting design. But recently, many designers have lost sight of the artistic creativity that comes with building a home. Popular colors when designing modern homes are white, gray and beige, a stark contrast from the colorful decorations of previous generations.
A prime example of everything I hate about minimalism is Kim Kardashian's home. Bare walls, beige furniture and minimal décor make the house feel cold and uninviting. The Kardashian home resembles the houses in "The Giver" that everyone was trying to escape. Even her daughter's room, although entirely pink, feels uninspiring and depressing.
Because not everyone has modern, trendy houses, we may not notice the “futuristic” beige design. Something that we all can see, though, is the modernization of brand logos. Logos have long been a tool for brands to make consumers remember their products. Some jobs focus on developing logos that use psychological and visual tricks to draw consumers to the brand.
A famous example of the intricacy of logo design is the Pepsi logo. Pepsi redesigned its logo in 2008 using the Golden Ratio, the "aesthetically pleasing" universal design. It also created a bottle shape that took the ideal aspects of old Pepsi bottles to create a new, iconic bottle that they believed would be easily recognizable. Pepsi has continued to use these ideas in making its latest logo while adding even more pleasing visual aspects.
Unlike Pepsi, other brands are trying desperately to modernize their design in a minimalist fashion and, as a result, have unintentionally destroyed their logos. A perfect example of this is the Warner Brothers logo. The logo has undergone many changes since its introduction in 1923, with the most iconic variation being used from 1984 to 2019. This blue and gold logo had an iconic badge shape, visual depth and bold colors, making it the most well-remembered logo for the company.
In 2019, Warner Brothers was criticized for their new design, which features a slimmed-down, 2-D version of the old logo. The logo inspires little visual interest aside from its blue color, with all of the shadows and warm colors being lost. Almost all of the charm from the old logo was removed to create a minimalist version of the iconic badge.
This trend can be found among many other brands. The current aesthetic push is to create a simple, 2-D, font-oriented logo with minimal imagery. While logo design is still a detailed process, it is much less detailed than in the past. Rather than focusing on images, colors, fonts, odd shapes and depth, artists mostly now focus on a logo's color and font.
Today's designers are motivated to make everything look the same. City buildings, houses, furniture, cars and everything else that can be bought has little to no differentiation. The reason for this can be disputed because it could be due to the easiness and affordability of production or simply current consumer desires. Regardless of why it is happening, it is making our world dull and dystopian.
In older pop culture references, these ideas were made to be feared. In "Edward Scissorhands," the suburban neighborhood houses, cars and people are used to contrast and vilify Edward, the protagonist. More famously, in "The Truman Show," the normality and simplicity of Truman's existence is used to dull his life and portray the suffocating feeling of repetitiveness and assimilation.
Many modern design styles push society closer to the worlds created in these movies — as if monotony is now "in." This trend is, in some ways, discouraging creativity and encouraging artists to copy their competitors. If new designs continue to imitate others and strive for simplicity, we may never reach more creative innovation in design.
Kenzie Shuman is a freshman studying Journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Kenzie know by emailing her at ms667222@ohio.edu or messaging her on Instagram @zieshuman.
