I've been commenting "ai slop" on just about every AI ad I get which has led to some of the advertisers looking at my account/stories and commenting on my posts
I've thought a lot about why "corporate Memphis" sucks so much. I think it's because it comes across as incredibly ingenuine. It communicates a Utopian world free of race and gender gaps, which is demonstrably not the case in reality. In a way, the AI art is more genuine. "We don't give a fuck, neither do you, buy our stuff". I feel it speaks to an overall nihilism with the world. I think it's a part of the disillusionment with the "liberal elite" that we find on the left (and honestly, probably the right too). Corporate Memphis is Nancy Pelosi. AI art is JD Vance. The fact we're yearning for the former shows how terrible the latter really is.
In my opinion, both Memphis and AI art serve one purpose - to discourage people from thinking for themselves, just in different ways.
Memphis tries to do that by being so inoffensive it becomes background noise of unrealistic features and colors that strip any personality away.
AI art is in turn like art of any authoritarian regime - it must convey a propaganda message, and it should do it so clearly, that even simplest organism can get the message, so yeah - the “art” part is basically lost in the process. And with AI you have a tool to do just that - machine to create amalgamation of images beholder has already seen, essentially also becoming a background noise.
actually that mostly looks accurate lmao except the leaf growing out of the window sill, and the space between blue shirt's armpit area should probably be white
They have no faces. They have no eyes. Their ears are smooth slabs. They cannot taste, smell, hear, or see. They cannot even breathe the air around them. They cannot speak. And yet, they somehow persist, kept animate and aware by unknown Eldritch forces. They have no mouths, yet they must scream.
A plant phasing through walls? Strangely blue-shifted light? Whose to say how physics works in their Godless world? I do not know what Hell these beings dwell in, but I pray that I am never reincarnated there.
could be yea, I think a human artist would have made that more obvious to look intentional, like have the chair poking out to his side and above his shoulder
I hope people are starting to realize why software engineers don't handle UX design and why your standard issue middle aged person was not limited by their lack of graphics design skill to create an ad.
I can't tell you how often I've been walking around looking for a place to eat and I see all these AI generated slop menus with AI generated food photos. I just walk away from those places. I can almost forgive the AI generated format for the menu, almost. But I can't forgive the food photos
2 many linx 4 u : I made a meme, someone responded to the meme. I reposted the meme in response to a post 11 months later, and the same person responded with the same ideas. When I pointed it out they got embarrassed.
The worst future: AI art continues to improve until it actually is indistinguishable from human art for 99% of the population. But the cost in turn rises. It costs maybe a quarter of what a human artist would need to charge for the same work. Still cheap enough to mostly put human artists out of business, but still by no means cheap or affordable. The AI companies drive the real artists out of their fields, and then raise the prices as high as they can without allowing a new crop of commercial artists to spring up.
I cannot muster sufficient hubris to say it can't get worse than AI slop, yet for the sake for whatever remains of my sanity I refuse to believe it can, let alone attempt to imagine what such an atrocity against aesthetics would look like.
Search engines are not really helping me here. Does anyone have real world examples from companies the general public knows that incorporates corporate Memphis? I don't really remember seeing it that often and I feel like maybe I'm on crazy pills
For an example of what these illustrations evolved into look at Firefox.com. But overall they have died not because of AI Slop, but because they got stale and any hangover over the last couple years was from "pre-built" templates.
From personal experience I'd see it in PowerPoints, business to business (B2B) marketing, and a lot of SaS or digital tech products.
A lot of companies in those spaces went abstract or geometric and phased stock photos of people laughing at nothing back into their marketing.
The stock images of people is what these Memphis stick figures replaced because it was easier to spin things up quickly without agonizing over getting photographic diversity, which was kind of a driver at the time.
They are good. The illustration style that was dominated by these Memphis people for areas that still need some illustrative "fun" has shifted to gradients and more color. The roots of simplistic illustration are still there, just improved.
This too will get stale. Design trends used to last close to a decade, than down to 5 years around the 2000s. Now it's more like maybe 2 years before everyone gets bored. That's only going to accelerate.
But as the cycle goes around and around, it always seems to comeback to swiss design. Modified of course, but the base DNA is always there because it's what all us designers had beaten into us as visual communicators.
All this Memphis, flat design, geometric bullshit is dressing on that basis that still works. Because at the Bauhaus school they looked closely at the psychology of visual communication and recorded what works and why to be an authority on the subject.
At the end of the day, a design is a failure if it doesn't communicate to the viewer. Everything else consumers see are distractions marketing VPs and CEOs feel like they need because they "paid good money for something NEW".
56 replies
You hate Corporate Memphis eh?
That was a complete coincidence I posted the Corporate Memphis Saturn Devouring His Son picture as well.
I've been commenting "ai slop" on just about every AI ad I get which has led to some of the advertisers looking at my account/stories and commenting on my posts
But guess what? It's not stopping me!
What are they commenting though ? Do they seem angry?
They're not angry, to me it feels like a "look at what I can do" but maybe I'm just projecting
Edit: lol I never looked at my message requests
No, YOU’RE SLOP!
Maybe I am slop, but at least I'm flesh and bones slop! My incorrect perspective and extra digit laden art uses significantly less water!
Yes. Yes… You see how you slop.
I've thought a lot about why "corporate Memphis" sucks so much. I think it's because it comes across as incredibly ingenuine. It communicates a Utopian world free of race and gender gaps, which is demonstrably not the case in reality. In a way, the AI art is more genuine. "We don't give a fuck, neither do you, buy our stuff". I feel it speaks to an overall nihilism with the world. I think it's a part of the disillusionment with the "liberal elite" that we find on the left (and honestly, probably the right too). Corporate Memphis is Nancy Pelosi. AI art is JD Vance. The fact we're yearning for the former shows how terrible the latter really is.
In my opinion, both Memphis and AI art serve one purpose - to discourage people from thinking for themselves, just in different ways.
Memphis tries to do that by being so inoffensive it becomes background noise of unrealistic features and colors that strip any personality away.
AI art is in turn like art of any authoritarian regime - it must convey a propaganda message, and it should do it so clearly, that even simplest organism can get the message, so yeah - the “art” part is basically lost in the process. And with AI you have a tool to do just that - machine to create amalgamation of images beholder has already seen, essentially also becoming a background noise.
Hmm good analysis
ah but what if AI slop Corporate Memphis??
actually that mostly looks accurate lmao except the leaf growing out of the window sill, and the space between blue shirt's armpit area should probably be white
They have no faces. They have no eyes. Their ears are smooth slabs. They cannot taste, smell, hear, or see. They cannot even breathe the air around them. They cannot speak. And yet, they somehow persist, kept animate and aware by unknown Eldritch forces. They have no mouths, yet they must scream.
A plant phasing through walls? Strangely blue-shifted light? Whose to say how physics works in their Godless world? I do not know what Hell these beings dwell in, but I pray that I am never reincarnated there.
If it didn't just mess up, maybe that was intended to be his chair?
could be yea, I think a human artist would have made that more obvious to look intentional, like have the chair poking out to his side and above his shoulder
It wasn’t ‘intended’ to be anything. It’s just slop. That’s the problem.
I hope people are starting to realize why software engineers don't handle UX design and why your standard issue middle aged person was not limited by their lack of graphics design skill to create an ad.
Slop consumers be like "AI democratizes creativity" and then all use the same design for everything
AI democratizes creativity in the same way as kneecapping everybody democratizes dance.
It's because most people aren't that creative.
That's why they say "hell is a bottomless pit".
No matter how bad it gets, things can ALWAYS get worse.
I can't tell you how often I've been walking around looking for a place to eat and I see all these AI generated slop menus with AI generated food photos. I just walk away from those places. I can almost forgive the AI generated format for the menu, almost. But I can't forgive the food photos
I was browsing for new restaurants in my area and someone unaffiliated with the restaurant had uploaded AI images of food. Like WTF?
We heard your feedback, and decided to fulfill your request and use AI-slopped corporate memphis
You're welcome
monkey paw finger curls
OK, now you're just rubbing the "plagiarism" in my face :P
Lol, I guess it left an impression hours earlier, and I have a goldfish memory... Whoops.
You got lucky, someone got got by a repost of my memes 11 months later.
https://lemmy.world/post/52518261/26080976
I'd say I'm missing some context here, but then I'd pass for an LLM asking for more tokens or whatever idk
the links are there, just click them.
2 many linx 4 u : I made a meme, someone responded to the meme. I reposted the meme in response to a post 11 months later, and the same person responded with the same ideas. When I pointed it out they got embarrassed.
I was just making a joke about LLMs, but I did (
) out of curiosity; thanks for the TL;DR
https://lemmy.world/post/52795185/26196937
... I put too much effort into this, I'll have to keep it in my reaction images folder
This is my favourite thing I've seen today
Now I want a Corporate Memphis variant of every meme.
A MemePhis library, if you will.
I might try to make a few today.
May a cat let you rub its belly in the near future.
TIL that art style is called Corporate Memphis.
TIL that corporate blandness had a name.
I think it had it's place as inoffensive background filler but obviously was overdone.
AI slop is usually so out of place everywhere and it's quickly gone straight to abused.
Reject Corporate Memphis, embrace Frutiger Aero
I never knew either of those things had a name until this thread.
nah, frutiger aero was corporate memphis before corporate memphis
it was very pretty but still soulless
embrace solarpunk
The worst future: AI art continues to improve until it actually is indistinguishable from human art for 99% of the population. But the cost in turn rises. It costs maybe a quarter of what a human artist would need to charge for the same work. Still cheap enough to mostly put human artists out of business, but still by no means cheap or affordable. The AI companies drive the real artists out of their fields, and then raise the prices as high as they can without allowing a new crop of commercial artists to spring up.
FYI business owners. You give me slop advertising I will give you no money or time.
The ai slop is closer to comic sans clipart slop and easier to block out than tiny head deformed monstrosities.
I hate corporate memphis so fucking much that I'd reverse this meme.
I cannot muster sufficient hubris to say it can't get worse than AI slop, yet for the sake for whatever remains of my sanity I refuse to believe it can, let alone attempt to imagine what such an atrocity against aesthetics would look like.
This aesthetic is like the new Comic Sans, except infinitely less endearing
Honestly, I hate that corporate art style so much that I still like ai slop better
Search engines are not really helping me here. Does anyone have real world examples from companies the general public knows that incorporates corporate Memphis? I don't really remember seeing it that often and I feel like maybe I'm on crazy pills
For an example of what these illustrations evolved into look at Firefox.com. But overall they have died not because of AI Slop, but because they got stale and any hangover over the last couple years was from "pre-built" templates.
From personal experience I'd see it in PowerPoints, business to business (B2B) marketing, and a lot of SaS or digital tech products.
A lot of companies in those spaces went abstract or geometric and phased stock photos of people laughing at nothing back into their marketing.
The stock images of people is what these Memphis stick figures replaced because it was easier to spin things up quickly without agonizing over getting photographic diversity, which was kind of a driver at the time.
It's my job to keep an eye on trends.
I thought the illustrations on firefox.com looked quite good?
They are good. The illustration style that was dominated by these Memphis people for areas that still need some illustrative "fun" has shifted to gradients and more color. The roots of simplistic illustration are still there, just improved.
This too will get stale. Design trends used to last close to a decade, than down to 5 years around the 2000s. Now it's more like maybe 2 years before everyone gets bored. That's only going to accelerate.
But as the cycle goes around and around, it always seems to comeback to swiss design. Modified of course, but the base DNA is always there because it's what all us designers had beaten into us as visual communicators.
All this Memphis, flat design, geometric bullshit is dressing on that basis that still works. Because at the Bauhaus school they looked closely at the psychology of visual communication and recorded what works and why to be an authority on the subject.
At the end of the day, a design is a failure if it doesn't communicate to the viewer. Everything else consumers see are distractions marketing VPs and CEOs feel like they need because they "paid good money for something NEW".
Interesting. Thanks!
The empty trash of google drive. And Mozilla used to include this art style when they said what's new in Firefox.