Alex Murrell wrote a blog post titled The Age of Average (March 20, 2023).
« This article argues that from film to fashion and architecture to advertising, creative fields have become dominated and defined by convention and cliché. Distinctiveness has died. In every field we look at, we find that everything looks the same. Welcome to the age of average. »
« But it’s not all bad news. I believe that the age of average is the age of opportunity. When every supermarket aisle looks like a sea of sameness, when every category abides by the same conventions, when every industry has converged on its own singular style, bold brands and courageous companies have the chance to chart a different course. To be different, distinctive and disruptive… When the world zigs. Zag. »
« Interiors all look the same… Laurel Schwulst: “The Airbnb experience is supposed to be about real people and authenticity. But so many of them were similar, whether in Brooklyn, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, or Santiago.” … AirSpace, however, isn’t just limited to residential interiors. The same tired tropes have spread beyond the spaces where we live, and taken over the spaces where we work, eat, drink and relax… And this isn’t just a trend that we can see in British coffee culture. The same trend has been identified in cities from Bangkok to Beijing and from Seoul to San Francisco. »
« Architecture all looks the same. The anthropologist Marc Augé coined the term “non-place” to describe built environments that are defined by their transience and anonymity. Non-places, such as airports, service stations and hotels, tend towards utilitarian sterility. They prioritise function and efficiency over a softer sense of human expression and social connection… This architectural style, characterised by boxy forms and unconvincing cladding, goes by names such as Fast-Casual Architecture and McUrbanism. But perhaps most commonly, these buildings are known as five-over-ones. »
« Cars all looks the same… But why do so many modern cars look the same? Jim Carroll’s wind-tunnel theory is certainly one reason. Another is that the automotive giants increasingly share vehicle “platforms” between the many brands that they operate. And Ian Callum, who led design at Jaguar-Land Rover for two decades, provides a third theory. “There was a time when you could identify the country the car came from. But today, basically every company makes cars for basically every country (…). Cars are now designed for the broadest possible audience, across the broadest number of countries, to be manufactured in the most efficient possible way.” … According to data shared by Jökull Solberg, around 40% of cars sold in 1996 were monochromatic (black, white, silver or grey). 20 years later that figure had increased to 80%. »
« People all look the same… But the cost of achieving this look, which has become known as “Instagram Face”, is even lower than one may imagine. Whilst the average price per syringe of filler is $683, social sharers can now use apps to achieve similar results. »
Hollywood. « Adam Mastroianni analysed the top 20 grossing films in every year since 1977 and coded whether each was part of a “multiplicity” (i.e. a sequel, prequel, franchise, spin-off, reboot etc.). What he found was surprising: “Until the year 2000, about 25% of top-grossing movies were prequels, sequels, spinoffs, remakes, reboots, or cinematic universe expansions. Since 2010, it’s been over 50% ever year. In recent years, it’s been close to 100%.” … In short, the top 20 films are becoming both bigger and more alike. »
« Books. “It used to be pretty rare for one author to have multiple books in the top 10 in the same year. Since 1990, it’s happened almost every year. No author ever had three top 10 books in one year until Danielle Steel did it 1998. In 2011, John Grisham, Kathryn Stockett, and Stieg Larsson all had two chart-topping books each. (…) In the 1950s, a little over half of the authors in the top 10 had been there before. These days, it’s closer to 75%.” »
« Video games are no different. In the late 1990s, 75% or less of the best-selling video games were franchise instalments. Since 2005, it’s been closer to 100%. »
« Brands all look the same. Elizabeth Goodspeed argues this is because these brands are more likely to draw inspiration from the same vast online sources. The result, she says, is a “moodboard effect”: “This kind of visual homogeneity is a common occurrence in the art direction world, where ubiquitous styles operate less like trends and more like memes; remixed and diluted until they become a single visual mass. In today’s extremely-online world, the vast availability of reference imagery has, perhaps counterintuitively, led to narrower thinking and shallower visual ideation. It’s a product of what I like to call the “moodboard effect.” »
Visual Identities. « In December 2018, Thierry Brunfaut and Tom Greenwood published an article in Fast Company where they coined a new word: Blanding. “The worst branding trend (…) is the one you probably never noticed. I call it blanding. The main offenders are in tech, where a new army of clones wears a uniform of brand camouflage. The formula is sort of a brand paint-by-numbers. Start with a made-up-word name. Put it in a sans-serif typeface. Make it clean and readable, with just the right amount of white space. Use a direct tone of voice. Nope, no need for a logo. Maybe throw in some cheerful illustrations. Just don’t forget the vibrant colors. Bonus points for purple and turquoise. Blah blah blah.” Companies like AirBnB, Spotify and eBay have all dropped colourful logos with expressive typography for a straighter, stricter, altogether more muted, alternative.»
Taglines. « Shai Idelson, Strategy Director at ad agency BBH, collected a list of 27 brands whose taglines follow the “Find Your X” sentence structure. These include Lucozade’s “Find Your Flow”, Rightmove’s “Find Your Happy” and Volvic’s “Find Your Volcano”. Idelson says: “I love end-lines. The delicate art of capturing a meaningful thought about a brand or a product in as few words as possible. A great end-line will touch my heart and stay in my memory forever. I still remember some from my childhood. But in the last few years, something happened to end-lines. (…) The linguistic similarity is staggering.” »
Art. « In the early 1990s, two Russian artists named Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid took the unusual step of hiring a market research firm. Their brief was simple. Understand what Americans desire most in a work of art…The pair repeated this process in a number of countries including Russia, China, France and Kenya… Describing the work in his book Playing to the Gallery, the artist Grayson Perry said: “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.” »
Articles of Interest 