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It\u2019s the character design style that creatives love to hate. Corporate Memphis became a ubiquitous part of the marketing landscape in the 2010s. Every corporation from Google to the London Transportation System embraced this style of design. Now, pundits are gleefully declaring that Corporate Memphis is dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like Mark Twain<\/a>, the demise of Corporate Memphis may just be an exaggeration. Familiar bendy limbed characters still pop up now and then. So, what does the death, or not, of the big tech art style mean for design?\u00a0<\/p>\n If you were alive and online in the last ten years, you\u2019ve almost certainly seen this corporate art style in action. Corporate Memphis is a style of character design marked by:<\/p>\n The characters are almost always active and joyful. They run, jump, and smile as they collaborate on their computers and smartphones.\u00a0<\/p>\n The design was likely in the zeitgeist before the mid-2010s, but it reached the masses in 2017 when the media agency called Buck created a custom animated and illustration design style for Facebook. They called it Alegria. And pretty soon, everyone was mimicking the aesthetic.\u00a0<\/p>\n The name Corporate Memphis is credited to Mike Merrill<\/a>, who was reminded of the Italian design and architecture group known as Memphis.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whatever you call it, this style quickly became the go-to way for tech companies to seem modern and playful. Which sounds lovely until you realize how many people really hate this character design style.<\/p>\n Illustrator and YouTuber, Struthless, created a video with more than 380,000 views<\/a> that called Corporate Memphis \u201cthe world\u2019s most hated art style.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nWhat is Corporate Memphis?<\/h2>\n
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Why do people Hate Corporate Memphis?<\/h2>\n