Does this design trend
May 2, 2000 6:25 PM   Subscribe

Does this design trend remind anyone else of Autechre album cover art circa 1997? See also [ dform ], [ ngin ], and the mother of them all [ vir2l ].
posted by muta (12 comments total)
 
Yeah, I've seen a bunch of sites linked from k10k very similar.
posted by hobbes at 6:52 PM on May 2, 2000


thats a direct rippoff of dform.
posted by Dom at 6:54 PM on May 2, 2000


mschmidt mentioned a couple days ago about a new "dirty image" trend, too.

design project, for one.

I consider myself kind of new and catching up, but I take it that there have been a bunch of trends that I've missed? I've seen a bunch of sites using a grey and pastel scheme and white lines too... They're all of high caliber, but in a way, they're all the same from far away.
posted by hobbes at 7:31 PM on May 2, 2000


I'm not sure the "dirty image" thing is at all new. Unless it went out and is back again. In which case maybe I can stop resisting all those grunge fonts I harbor such a fond and illicit liking for? mmmm.
posted by Sapphireblue at 7:46 PM on May 2, 2000


I dunno what mschmidt is talking about. The dirty image thing is old. Just take a look at any "design" site a few years ago and you know what I mean.

Sure, a lot of these sites look similar, but what you people need to realize is that the Dform's, Ngin's, and DesignGraphik's all WORK at Vir2l. So it's no surprise that when you have 10 or so really great designers all working at the same place, they're all going to turn out similar stuff (because of the constant influence). Vir2l is just all these guys sites put into one big one.
posted by vitaflo at 8:04 PM on May 2, 2000


Grunge died but some people held onto it. The newest iterations are like the one linked in the title of this post, grunge meets 3d.

The Autechre cover is actually looks like a piece of 2d comp work. The look they've achieved is very similar to a common intro design project where the students use sections of blown-up and layered type forms to create an image. It typically results in the shattered splintery mess seen above.
posted by bryanboyer at 10:10 PM on May 2, 2000


vitaflo, yeah I meant "the mother of them all" in more senses than one..
posted by muta at 10:46 PM on May 2, 2000


Not only that, Vir2L is owned and run by two Architects in the Washington DC area - Ann Cederna and her husband, Douglas Frederick. They both teach 3d animation studios in the architecture school at http://archtiecture.cua.edu/">Catholic University using 3d studio max. I took two semesters of it myself. Vir2L, as well as XLTranslab and Enexusstudios (all three are owned by cederna/frederick) are cool companies, but most of the employees are imported.

they also do alot of character animation for video games with Bethesda Softworks...

So you have a massive architecture vibe coming from their work influence. look at

http://www.xltranslab.com/
http://www.frederick-cederna.com/

posted by eljuanbobo at 11:03 PM on May 2, 2000


Another company based out of WDC is Airline Industries, who have been stretching the fabric of design for years, mainly through print media. I'm not sure how much influence they've had, specifically on web development, but I feel like their innovations are used as standard in many design bureaus. Certainly that's the case within the techno community. Dating back to 1994, their flyers and posters for local raves [Buzz, Sting, Cloudwatch, Ultraworld, et al] and other events have included smooth three-dimensional imaging [ray-traced and photographic], intense layering effects, variable-opacity blending and creative logo/icon usage -- all reinforced by a unique grid system which pervades their entire body of work. Airline walks a fine line between chaos and restraint, the latter of which is often missing in today's "avant hard" design sites.

I stopped partying in 1997, and even now I collect as many Airline posters and handbills as I can find. Always inspirational.
posted by legibility at 5:06 AM on May 3, 2000


A long, long time ago an incredibly brilliant man named Solomon said, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

His words have been quoted more than a million times and it seems, they still remain true. So, the question is when does this become a problem? Why are we afraid of things remaining the same? Why do we feel this need to create something new and different?
posted by shmuel at 8:34 AM on May 3, 2000


It's all 2D representations of what in 3D architecture is called "deconstructivism", best represented today by Frank Gehry's work. It's not surprising if this online design trend is linked to architecture. It has its roots in early 20th century art trends like the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. For these painters, cubism represented freedom from the restraints of realism. It was closely linked with expressionism, which was all about emphasizing the emotional involvement of the artist in creation of the painting. Compare the above with, for example, Kandinsky's Composition VIII, from 1923.
posted by dhartung at 10:04 AM on May 3, 2000


hmm.. Token from k10k calls this style "three-dee shape-attack" in reference to this site.
posted by muta at 11:48 AM on May 5, 2000


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