Why do "Corporate Art Styles" Feel Fake? 

Yes I mispronounced the name "Kurzgesagt" sorry. For the record I did look up how the channel narrator himself pronounced it and I thought he said it in that way clearly I didn't listen closely enough sorry. Also a small note at 7:25 I fail to mention that the New Yorker has been using flat illustration characters for a while but I think there's still a slight difference between these covers and the kinds of characters they usually have.

this art style is just visual representation of what a spotify ad feels like.

In an attempt not to offend anybody, they relate to nobody.

The style has a strange… indescribable feeling. It’s like they are trying to fool you into thinking they care about their individual customers.

So inclusive it's exclusive So universal it's alienated So unique it's homogeneous Don't be confused, these juxtapositions are done by purpose.

The official art style of "Trust us we are totally not going to use your data for any unethical purposes"

i love how every time a corporation tries to seem like a human, the more and more it feels like it doesn't have a soul

This art style feels like it was designed to be emotional by someone incapable of feeling emotion

It’s not that the art is inherently bad, it’s that it represents something much darker. The soulless feel of it all. It feels like a mask that the suits put on to appear human. Skinwalker behaviour.

This ad literally looks like what fake bad comercials look like in movies

This art style just screams “we don’t sell your data”

it's crazy how an almost indescribable trait like "soullessness" is instantly felt by the majority of people when looking at this kind of art. just empty, unfeeling lines and colors. it's at the point where they don't even feel human-generated anymore, they're like clip art

The one thing that irks me the most with these corporate artstyles is the "optimism" and all the happy smiles with the characters is to appeal to you as 'Hey were just like you here in the Big Corpo' and said art can be visible a click away from them publicly apologizing for the most heinous shit known to man

its not that the artstyle is hated, its what it represents. which is the bloated, monopolistic, corporations that uses it. it personally feels like a horrifying, shapeshifting monster pretending to be something trustworthy, only to gut your wallet and privacy for their own profit

I can't explain it, but this art style gives off a huge toxic positivity vibe. It's like that one person who will plot to kill you if you're not smiling and having a good time.

Ah, yes, "instead of just putting people of different colors in our art, we opted to just make them blue instead!" very progressive and relatable

Any time I see these drawings, I have some generic loop of ukelele, whistling, and hand claps pop into my mind. It fills me with a *poisonous* rage.

Basically, it's offensively inoffensive.

this style looks like how the word "synergy" sounds

I feel that this art style is most prevelant among companies that want to be seen as “progressive” too. Since it represents a wide range of different looking people, I often see it in a context of “look guys, we’re not racist!”… which just makes me question their choice of non-existent skin tones even more.

As an artist, I want to feel when I look at art. When I look at corporate art, I feel nothing, and feeling nothing makes me begin to ask questions.

corporate art: even when the colors are warm, their tone is cold.

The weird thing about this art style is I don't like or hate it, it just exists.

After examining the style, I've come up with a hypothesis on just why we tend to see it as psychopathic. The first thing that stands out to me is that characters seem to exhibit what I'm gonna refer to as "reverse-neoteny". Neoteny describes childlike and appealing features, and as an example, humans are neotenous compared to other great apes. We have very reduced browridges, flatter faces, bulbous heads, expressive faces and much less broad body shapes, making us look more similar to juvenile hominids than adult ones. The "corporate artstyle", however, despite commonly viewed as infantile, is the reverse of these features. Big, disproportionately broad torsos and limbs with tiny heads that, in the half of the time they do have faces, are extremely simplified and comparable to the NPC meme. These unappealing features seem to do a good job at dehumanizing the humans they're intended to represent, and in tandem with the otherwise kiddy style supplementing the grossly proportioned figures, give it the "soulless" and psychopathic look.

I think it's just the clear attempt at manipulating the audience that makes me so unnerved about the corporate art styles. There's nothing inherently wrong to me about pictures of simple, purple or green people, laughing and having fun together - in fact I kind of artistically value art that focuses on every day enjoyment of things, and i really like creative simplicity. It's the knowledge that this is done because the app is trying to play some kind of mind game with me, to make me associate happiness and smiles with the app in some kind of genuine capacity, that it's placed on top of data mining and stealing, that it isn't GENUINE, which fucks me up. The context of where the art is placed is just as important at what the art looks like. It comes off as inherently ironic because everyone knows Facebook is shit.

It feels like something a government would use excessively in a dystopian world to convince you that nothing is wrong.

corporate art feels like it just spawns. like i can’t imagine an artist sitting down and drawing this lol

Mascot and logo are probably more desirable than this because it’s the corporation representing ITSELF in its infographics rather than representing US. When it’s their interpretation of how we’re supposed to feel, it’s like they’re telling us HOW we’re supposed to feel. If it’s a representation of themselves, it feels more honest

I absolutely love the old school flat art. They put a whole lot more into it than flat art of today. Also, the fonts in use with a lot of Art Deco art pieces add much charm to those pieces.

It’s simple Kurzgesagt = has ducks Corporate = has no ducks

"Everything's fine" The art style. Historians will analyze it to death, that's for sure.

It's supposed to be ambiguous and I think it shows what these corporations actually think their customers look/act like: cartoonish walking bank accounts that just exist to spend money. That, and the art style looks like in belongs in a children's book. Like we're idiots or something. No wonder people hate it. It's akin to a faceless corporation that tries to say that you're family instead of a customer. Intrusive and cringe as all hell, has the exact opposite of what they want.

I feel like this art style has creeped into everything now and days. Everything from music to cars feels like it's made without passion

This art reminds me of how the airport smells

This art style be like: Tiny head, 9ft and and giant arms and legs

For any book nerds: This art style reminds me of the planet Camazotz from A Wrinkle in Time. Just unsettlingly perfect, to the point where you know something’s wrong.

I believe it's not about the art anymore... It can be a flat cartoon, a 3D animation, or real actors, what is annoying us is publicity EVERYWHERE all the time! I agree with you, sometimes would be more nice to just have a text, maybe a single picture.

So in essence. Soulless artwork intended to tick off the least amount of people possible. Characters that represent everyone and no one at the same time.

This art direction always rubs off on me as "I'm not like the other companies. Look at me I'm quirky and awkward too!"

Here in the middle of the US, there's a grocery store chain called Kroger. They use this art style in their commercials, and I remember seeing it (a hundred different times) and just hating it. I've noticed this in many different places, and your analysis of it is spot on.

4:19 I'm just surprised how the older icons look considerably more pleasing to the eye (or in some cases more readable and/or quickly identifiable - the things you want as an app icon).

I get the feeling that this art style is trying so hard to be inoffensive.

Remember that spongebob episode when he tries to become “normal”? That’s exactly what this art style reminds me of.

It kinda reminds me of clip-art from Microsoft office. A lot of the images in them had this 90s minimalist cubist look to them. I think that association with office software has also reinforced its sterile, corporate feel. And with clip-art in mind, it can feel lazy and fake. Typically when I see clip-art, I'm aware that the picture wasn't actually made for the document, but is instead a kind of stock image that was included with the software, or grabbed from Google images.

This sums it up really well! For a while, I have mockingly called it "Corporate Clean Flat™" where you can see websites, character design, coloration, etc... all feeling the same. It felt boring, thoughtless and lazy. Yet I couldn't put my finger on why they seemed that way for the longest time as like you said: They aren't inherently a bad style. I just knew something seemed off even though traits of them have been seen in far better art pieces throughout history. Then one day it hit me: It's not relatable. Like you pointed about that the illustrated people not really existing, they fail to capture what things are. There have been plenty of characters throughout history with exaggerated body proportions/movements and non-human colors, but they felt alive because of their relatability to each scenario. You aren't getting that when on stuff like seeing a bunch of people happily jumping for joy at a bug fix that took them 4 months to get to or something. People reading that announcement would be more like: "Oh... Took you long enough."

two words: "insidiously friendly"

The corporate art version of "Saturn Devouring His Son" is fucking hilarious.

I think it represents the androgynous life that the world is headed toward. Everyone needs to agree. Everyone needs to like or dislike something. Everything has to be combined to please everyone. If they make you faceless or generic, you have no identity and can be shaped into whatever society wants you to be. No original thoughts? That means you can't disagree. No identity outside of what society says makes up one's identity. They don't want you to be an individual. "If everyone's special, no one will be."- Syndrome and (loosely) Dash

I swear seeing this art style gives me a migraine its too simple seeing 2000s Shiny art style just looks refreshing and nice.

holy shit imagine if someone made a horror game in corporate art style... that would be insane

I think my teacher said it best, "If you try to make something that everyone likes, you'll lose what makes it special"

Funny, I find these human blobs actually pretty offensive. As in "this is absolutely every single one of you guys: overweight, silly people with a very, veeeery small head, always running or taking selfies". Revolting. Hated it at first sight.

As someone who likes minimalism, I actually don't hate the design themselves, I hate the fact it's used EVERYWHERE. They're also "dumbing down" the logos more than they are simplifying it. Look at the old internet explorer logos. They had detail in them if you looked closely, but the main logo could be drawn by a child and you'd still know what it is. *_That's minimalism done right._* Minimalism doesn't mean "saturate the colors and remove any depth or detail."

God I hate this art style. It feels so devoid of any personality I can't stand it. There's no uniqueness in the people drawn, there's no personality, no real emotions. Art made with no soul that feels like brain washing material..

As an artist myself, i dont hate the art style at all. I just hate what it represents. Every time I see it I think of other artists switching to the style to make a client happy.

As a designer, I have always seen this overused style as ‘Clip Art’ was before the internet. It cheapens any brand and your trenchant critique is spot on! I would rather look at the cheesy stock images before this style was adopted. Besides the body forms on all these are strange, because the use of these stock illustrated humanz would never be considered surreal.

The Grubhub Commercials literally look like those advertisements for bottled oxygen in the Lorax.

I don’t know why, but the phrase,”Grubhub lore” absolutely killed me

It just feels like that person that critisize you if you don't see superficilly happy

Great video / analysis! From a technical pov: this art style is due it's simplicity a good alternative specially for smaller businesses to tell stories (e. g. for campaigns, newsletters, new products) without spending a lot of money on A. complex illustrations (for every new campaign or newsletter) which are not reusable B. a photoshooting. That's why it's pretty widely used. Clients also often lack on imagination or need some sort of confirmation/safety net. It's way more difficult if not even impossible to introduce an art style which is not common and unique because a client - who's not design affine - needs a proof of concept if you will. Round shapes are also linked to humane/safe/trust/freedom in design language, combined with desaturated colors, you achieve a humane look by the book. The shapes of the people have to be abstract so that a wider range of people can relate to it. Imagine the people would have concrete proportion or would be skinny vs. thick / small vs. large = you would add meanings to them unconsciously. The long legs and arms also help show actions/tasks more clearly, and therefore it's easier to tell stories (that's why the art style is often used to describe a process e. g. a login or registration process too). Due to its simplicity, it's also great to create scenes fast. Like you said in your video, deadlines are always short. The question of »How do we tell stories?« photos or illustrations? Is a common question when developing brands. It's mostly dependent on the brand itself. E. g. if you're a small business and don't have an office OR if you're and big business international business with many people, it's hard to show humanity through photos without being too generic (which we all also hate, right? Think of all the generic stock photos).

I feel like the art style is the corporations telling me “everything, is as it should be :)” while they gain dirty money

I've started realizing how weird it is, it just feels like the company is trying to be relatable but it feels like it was made by some algorithm programmed to churn out happy and diverse noodle people. There's no humanity.

I'm sort of inspired to try and recreate scenes of war and death in Alegria now

as someone who is planning to major in graphic design, this is good info to help me understand what i may be getting into, great video!

The corporate art style feels like suffocatingly happy , like it’s smiling while holding a gun to your head and telling you to be happy , kinda unnerving man . But some of this feeling can be attributed towards hate against big corp. The illustrators really need to get paid properly man , their job feels undervalued .

I honestly find those tiny-headed blocky-body noodle limb people from the corporate art style to be vaguely unnerving to look at. The tiny heads and long large limbs gives me the impression that they're ridiculously tall. I can't help but imagine them as creatures from a horror movie or game. Imagine one of those things steadily pursuing you down a dark hallway.

That art style pretty much makes the image invisible to me. I've seen so much of the same thing that I guess I just naturally skim over it.

i literally got an ad with that art style right after i saw this 😂😂😂😂 it’s so common wtf

The grubhub ad looks like a future illumination film

It's an art style that looks like it has something to say, but is also carefully crafted to say absolutely nothing on its own.

The disproportionate limbs creeps me out honestly

I worked at Amazon for a “seasonal shift” and it was the most dystopian thing ever. A lot of art like this is used in advertisements or training videos. I hated working there it’s the epitome of corporate and the job is mindless robotic work.

That art style is so devoid of any personality or life that it's actually a little scary...

At my art school we coined the term “bendy people” cause of their noodle arms

This is interesting because I was just hired to make a set clipart for a large corporate and they wanted something generic but inclusive. They don’t want expressions. They want to have characters that can be pulled out by the designers, so they can mix and match to be able to repeatedly use them in different campaigns. It’s really hard to make something unique and feel alive when you are task with something so generic and with so much restriction. The art you like are made for that one single purpose, so the composition and the characters works well in a single piece because it’s meant for just that one piece. Clipart like the ones used in the corporate world are meant to be recycled sadly.

Samsung does this too. I recently upgraded to an A53 phone and several of the stock apps have this style shoehorned into it, like it really needed to be there for some reason. I don't think the stock sms app even needed art in it to begin with.

These art styles are supposed to gain the consumer's trust but whenever I see them I think, "They are going to sell my data."

We don't hate this art style just because it's bad, we hate it because of what it represents

7:46 I love how horribly spelled Kurzgesagt was. The video was going pretty serious and in a single tone until that point. Thanks for making me smile in such a way

I think something that differentiates Corporate Memphis from other minimalistic or geometric artstyles (see Bauhaus, Art Déco etc...) is the knowledge and experience artists have. For example, it is clear that the artists shown with a more original style have a different base or experience compared to the ones who just make humanoids with weird proportions and noodles arms, proof is how they use colors and shapes.

Artstyle: Tasteless, soulless, mimicking humans, without any tone, culture or character or gender; exactly how companies sees and treats us.

It looks like a bootleg version of “cloudy with a chance of meatballs” and you can’t convince me otherwise

Wow good on you for this. That makes sense. I knew I wasn’t going crazy. I noticed that for a long time

Great video, I loved it! So much details, and so many great recommendations ❤

It always baffles me how minimalism is seen as a "modern" and progressive, when it is something that was in my opinion perfected in graphic design and art half a century ago, if not even longer than that. Instead modern minimal graphic design has taken all of the art and nuance out of design, and created something simplistic rather than simple.

This art-style makes me think of "There is no war in Ba-Sing Se".

I don't know, but I always loved flat corporate art. There's was something so optimistic and picturesque about it that was pleasing to my eyes.

This artstyle has one huge perk, it's prob the easiest Vektor Animation base you can think of. People love moving stuff on websites and even as a beginner you can make some professional looking animations, which tbh, most of the animations for big companies get done by unpaid interns anyway, so it's super convenient for them to use them.

I thought I was the only one having this feeling. I felt like the art is so smug but at the same time soulless. It's very hard to describe

I've hated this style for as long as I can remember. I read it as soooo fucking condescending. Like we're all four years old laughing and clapping at colors and silly, faceless shapes. I'm fucking over it. Thank yo for this.

I hope these big companies never change their art styles. They're still just doing it for money, and so getting them to change their art style will only get other companies to use that style over and over again and ruin that as well. The boring, lifeless, soulless corporate artwork we have right now perfectly illustrates what the company is probably all about

Making a movie with this artstyle is like writing a book with comic sans.

This trend, feels like a font. A baseline that everyone can use just to get a point across, without truly expressing much of anything besides the message.

When you said “there’s “lore?!?” I genuinely laughed out loud

I remember I came across this ad using the corporate artstyle and they credited the artist, and I went to go look at their page on insta and I saw that, while they did draw humans like corporate memphis typically does, in their works that weren't for ads, their drawings looked alot more, I don't know how to put it, less corporate, less artificial and more alive and appealing I guess, I distinctly remember this one post they did that had a lady with glasses holding a cat I think, and had like a green color pallete too, sadly I don't remember the name of the artist so that sucks because it was some really nice art

honestly that kind of artstyle annoys the shit outta me, for literally no reason. every time i see it i just wanna punch a wall.

Louis Armstrong once said “you don’t become an artist because you want to, you become one because you can’t not.” Art has always been for expression, while profit can be made, it’s intent is to communicate - art in this style reflects the profit based intentions rather then expression - it’s the intent and connectivity art provided that it lacks - it’s truly something that is noticeable - appeal, low communication and mediocre expression does not grasp many , it’s honestly weird to look at

Hey Solar Sands do you still remember the Grub Hub ads after 2 years and the pandemic being a distant memory?

basically we need frugiter aero back

Its insincere sincerity. This may be anecdotal, but I feel as if graphic design has never been so similar between each brand. Not only does every company looks the same, but sound the same. All I hear is "peace of mind" and "family" and "community". It doesn't feel like they just wanna sell me something anymore. And for something which is supposedly a capitalist endeavor, that isn't a good sign.