"negative space to denote premium feel & materiality"

February 27, 2023 11:33 AM

"Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute is an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now." Examples: Cyberdelia, Eco-Beige, Paperback Chic, Corporate Grunge / Grunge™, Genericana, and Dollar Store Vernacular. Each category has a "Gallery" -- select "Show" to display examples of the aesthetic.

From the FAQ:

The concept of related, named categories is simply our best idea for organizing the content we find. The CARI system is not universally applicable; many artifacts fit either zero or very many aesthetics. Nor do the categories have hard edges--the intent is to define groups of artifacts based on attitutes and methods rather than pure visual similarity. Some categories span a very broad movement in design; others represent a popular but very homogenous trend.

posted by brainwane (36 comments total)

Ooh I think this is a new website for some of the stuff previously shared here. Fascinating to browse and feel the little flashes of memory kicking in my brain.
posted by Wretch729 at 11:47 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have a tiny beef with the Pixies' Doolittle album cover being lumped in with Corporate Grunge, as it was released in 1989 (which is when corporate A&R guys were just starting to flood into Seattle and hadn't convinced their overlords that this was a THING yet, iirc) and c'mon it's the Pixies, but this is pretty great.
posted by queensissy at 12:05 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Genericana could have had a whole subset of "old-timey looking crossed arrows." Do people remember that? Crossed arrows on logos. Everywhere.
posted by queensissy at 12:08 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fun, though Ray Gun as “ corporate grunge “ is also a bit harsh I thought.
posted by tardigrade at 12:16 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't know if it's just because it's so recent (and therefore still everywhere) but Chobanicore / Paperback Chic feels really nice to me.

But at heart I'm a Teenpunk. If I could wear giant wide-leg jeans and a wallet chain every day, I for sure would.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:17 PM on February 27, 2023

"not race horses and not show jumping horses" in the Dollar Store Vernacular gallery. Man, FJH Glover must have gotten a lot of hate mail from Tina Belcher to put that as his book's subtitle.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:18 PM on February 27, 2023

I'm surprised eco-beige cuts out so early. I remember seeing *and hating* that aesthetic well into adulthood, which would've been the 2000s-10s
posted by Selena777 at 12:29 PM on February 27, 2023

e: nvm
posted by higginba at 12:37 PM on February 27, 2023

I have a tiny beef with the Pixies' Doolittle album cover being lumped in with Corporate Grunge

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but in the 33 1/3 book about Doolittle, there's a quote from Black Francis about how the producer (who I believe was hired at the record label's suggestion) wanted to make an album with more commercial appeal.

(Also, if you like Corporate Grunge, you might also like Corporate Hippie.)
posted by box at 12:50 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Is vaporwave referencing radical surrealism with the statues?
posted by Selena777 at 12:57 PM on February 27, 2023

I've been on a recent kick of watching 90s/early 2000s suspense thrillers and it's rare to encounter an opening credits sequence that isn't absolutely larded with that grimy corporate grunge aesthetic—basically, if a movie stars Morgan Freeman and/or Ashley Judd, those credits are going to be in lowercase typewriter font and splashed all over the screen in haphazard fashion, accompanied by an ominous strobe effect and a sludgy Silverchair song you've never heard in your life.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:19 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I love these little time capsules. I haven't explored them all, but so far this is the winner for category description and this is my favorite category name.
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:22 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's some kind of Sign™ that the stuff that I both recognize and that absolutely 100% resonates with me is stuff from my childhood, isn't it? DESIGNERS, BREAK OUT THE BRYCE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE.
posted by Kyol at 1:26 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Vaporwave is about the co-option and shitification of culture by capitalism. So the statues represent antiquity being repurposed as mere mall decorations, stripped of their meaning and history. That's not to downplay the surreal playfulness of the genre, which is used to turn banal commercialized places weird in order to get people to look at them with new eyes and think about them critically, but the statues and roman columns have this more direct throughline for the genre.
posted by CheshireCat at 1:27 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Looking at the Cyberdelia section made me turn into a skeleton, crumble into dust, and blow away on the wind. I just realized a good portion of my early adulthood is now basically archaeology at this point. This is great and also I fucking hate it.
posted by 40 Watt at 1:40 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, I agree- the Corporate Grunge section has some odd choices. Some of this stuff either predates the commodification of grunge (Raygun, the Pixies) or were never really a part of it to begin with (Aphex Twin's SAW II) although dear god I don't ever need to see that distressed typewriter font ever again in my lifetime.

Where's my OK Soda? Is it pudding time yet? You damn kids get off'n mah lawn!
posted by 40 Watt at 1:44 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you're wondering why Cassette Futurism is so slim, it's because you should've been looking at Airbrush Surrealism instead!
posted by mittens at 1:51 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I just remembered Kai's Power Tools. Probably the first time I've thought of them in 25 years.
posted by pipeski at 2:26 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Raygun: “Oh, you actually want to *read* these articles ostensibly written for you, the reader? Fuck you.”
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:26 PM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I just realized a good portion of my early adulthood is now basically archaeology at this point.

I challenged some internet fetus's statement about culture in the 1980s recently, and they dismissed my criticisms because I "didn't cite any academic sources." Apparently "I was there" isn't good enough.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:35 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wretch729, you are super right!
posted by brainwane at 3:02 PM on February 27, 2023

The Corporate Grunge aesthetic strongly overlaps with what I think of as the Dave McKean look.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:14 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Kai's Power Tools and Bryce 3D used to feel like wizard magic and I kind of miss that feeling. That shit was everywhere on rave and concert fliers.
posted by loquacious at 3:42 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Genericana could also include the naming convention for restaurants/bars: "Noun & Noun" (in an old-timey font of course.) That was an early to mid-2010s kinda thing in my recollection?
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:48 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also Soft Colonial Wanderlust and Genericana have lots of overlap, especially in the traveling circus type imagery.

And I think Genericana could include the aesthetic of the retro silhouette or old Life magazine illustration-style clip art. Or the Rosie the Riveter homages or "reclaimed" (scare quotes because it always felt very unsubversive) pin-up imagery that some feminist blogs in the early 2000s used?
posted by spamandkimchi at 4:01 PM on February 27, 2023

Soft Colonial Wanderlust and Genericana have lots of overlap

They do. But the first is about imperial nostalgia, the second more about the emergence of a modern design aesthetic founded upon a nostalgic fantasy of American fin de siècle authenticity.
posted by pipeski at 4:52 PM on February 27, 2023

No J Peterson? Well made clothes, but unforgivable blurbs.
posted by clew at 5:12 PM on February 27, 2023

The Corporate Grunge aesthetic strongly overlaps with what I think of as the Dave McKean look.


Me too. But McKean has always been a magpie, drawing from lots of sources. There's some of his work in the gallery for Renaissance Revival.
posted by davidwitteveen at 5:59 PM on February 27, 2023

oh this is so cool!
posted by jameaterblues at 6:41 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

queensissy, I’ve been told the four-quadrant X-logo trend (often with crossed arrows) traces back to FEMA’s x-codes, used during Katrina to mark hazards. I can’t find a write-up drawing this direct line, but several graphic designers have told me this.
posted by Headfullofair at 7:37 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dave McKean is a very recognizable and widely emulated aesthetic but it's not 'corporate grunge.' It's post-modern tenebrism, at its apex in Sandman and Hellblazer. In CARI's taxonomy, maybe Whimsigothic.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:26 AM on February 28, 2023

queensissy, I’ve been told the four-quadrant X-logo trend (often with crossed arrows) traces back to FEMA’s x-codes, used during Katrina to mark hazards.

I think it traces back to summer camps with vaguely Native American references, and with historical military background, with the crossed arrows supposedly meaning 'friendship'.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:50 AM on February 28, 2023

Hello, fellow olds!

I strongly suspect that the reason we're all mad and care about these overt miscategorizations is that this webiste was made by, er, younger persons. We shouldn't be grumping re: Raygun or the Pixies or Dave McKean being offensively categorized (and they are offensively miscategorized, don't get me wrong here). Instead, we should be impressed that these people who clearly have zero total minutes of life experience of the twentieth century did such a great job sussing out these categories. Because, they are, after all, our children.

Then maybe one of our younger readers can direct those young people to this thread?
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 8:26 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm 52, and still wear cut-offs with boots and flannel while listening to Superunknown, but am not offended by the Corporate Grunge because:

a) it's an aesthetic seen from a historical persepctive, not something the people involved were self-applying at the time.
b) why wouldn't you include the ogirinators of a look?
c) the category is actually "Corporate Grunge / Grunge™"
posted by signal at 4:15 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nobody old enough to remember corporate grunge can see the screen well enough to do the tiny TM.
posted by mittens at 5:08 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Came here to post the page on Frutiger Aero, which seems to have been a recently covered, re-examined, and trending techno-consumer aesthetic that hits the same nostalgic beats as vaporwave, but without the melancholic hauntology.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:37 AM on March 2, 2023