“But after different reviews, it started to shift towards something simpler to copy and implement. “The style originally started as something more intuitive and complex,” says Hererra. Social media like the “Small cartoon people building big interfaces” and “Corporate Memphis” boards on are.na as well as the abrasive “Humans of Flat Design” Twitter account have taken to documenting the trend, which has spread across different brands, apps, and websites to the point of becoming unsettling.Īccording to Herrera, the Alegria style was intentionally modified for the sake of replicability during the development process and has since made its way through a number of illustration studios. The flat Alegria style has emerged as a simple, scalable, and image-softening tool for tech companies. I wanted to portray that sense of joy we feel when we’re sharing things together in community, like celebrating a goal in a bar or singing a song with a crowd at a concert.”Īs the internet becomes more image- and animation-oriented, tech and media spheres have grown increasingly reliant on illustration to fill white space and add character to their apps and web pages. “I started to draw characters that were defined by their actions,” says Herrera, “dancing with their open arms, bending their bodies to play the trumpet, for example, human reactions that connect us. Xoana Herrera, an illustrator who worked on the Buck team for Facebook’s redesign, says that it was paramount for the illustrations to depict human motion and energy, and therefore joy and connection. These technical considerations, however, fall short in explaining Alegria’s omnipresence. Outside of the cash-flush tech sphere, in the world of editorial illustration, shrinking budgets and condensed production timelines may have something to do with the turn towards flat minimalism-more ornate artwork means more hours putting pen to paper, and fewer dollars per hour to show for it. On a project as large as Facebook’s illustration system, this means that many artists can contribute while keeping the look and feel of the characters consistent. The Alegria style lends itself to standardization and replication: Its flat figures are based on simple shapes and geometric patterns. How does a particular aesthetic achieve ubiquity in such a short period of time? There are practical answers, to be sure. Examples of Algeria-style illustrations used in the tech realm For these companies, adopting a visual language that signals positivity and connectedness is a tool to paper over the social and political harm and divisiveness their products create-and illustration has increasingly become a centerpiece of the strategy. ![]() Airbnb, Hinge, Lyft, Airtable, Google, and YouTube are all in on the craze, along with seemingly every other new app or startup in existence. Often, they carry similarly large objects: a paintbrush, a trombone, a calendar.įacebook has become closely associated with this style, which its creators at Buck aptly dubbed “Alegria,” which is Spanish for “joy.” But the company is a fairly recent adopter of what has become an overwhelming trend in editorial and web illustration over the past few years, with particular prevalence currently in the realm of tech. ![]() They’re always in motion, dancing, painting, running, or hugging one another with the expanse of their oversized limbs arching away from their bodies like giant wet noodles. ![]() The incessantly joyful cartoon people are never static. The illustration system, developed by an L.A.- and Brooklyn-based design firm called Buck, is both distinctive and consistent: A typical illustration features smiling figures drawn in a flat, minimal style, with skin in a bright, pastel blue, pink, or green, and gangly, disproportionately large arms and legs. In 2017, Facebook began rolling out a series of new illustrations to accompany content throughout the site. ![]() Illustrations by Pablo Stanley, via humaaans design library. Illustrations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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