The Blanding
Looking at one of the more popular trends in visual identity design today, I can’t help but wonder if the meaning of Minimalism, as the graphic arts have come to know it, has been lost? Or, have we only set aside Minimalism for a while as we journey through a “Blanding” ( Bland + Branding) phase? Either way, it sure feels like modern identity design is in a rut.
Crude and dull, Blanding is an entirely functional approach to design, with no artistic flair or graphic wit. Many wordmark logos today seem to be created by typing out a name or phrase in whatever indistinctive sans-serif font and calling it finished. The writing in press releases gush about the craftsmanship in kerning and refined weight in letters but are lacking in ideas of substance or anything that matters to non-designers. The fact that we’re creating “custom” Helvetica clone fonts speaks to the idea of not having a grasp on the big picture or how the general public lives with graphic design. The end results are pedantic as they are lifeless.
It’s hard for me to say if something specific to graphic design caused this trend or if it’s part of a natural progression. I believe Blanding may have come to graphic design by designers taking the renowned phrase “form follows function” and following it to unbalanced extremes; instead of form and function, we only have function. I only assume it has come to a point where after desiring simplicity itself for so long, people got locked into the belief that “more simplicity is more better” at all costs.
Is this what designers now think Minimalism is— an aesthetic style based on hyper simplicity? The praises for Minimalistic values are still there, but we’re not seeing any of it’s ideas underneath it. Logos are being created as though the challenge is to make the most simple thing possible, getting caught up in the look of design, forgetting about the communication and purpose that Minimalism intended to deliver.
Minimalism Is Clarity
“Design discipline is above and beyond any style. All style requires discipline in order to be expressed. Very often people think that Design is a particular style. Nothing could be more wrong! Design is a discipline, a creative process with its own rules, controlling the consistency of its output toward its objective in the most direct and expressive way.” — Massimo Vignelli
Minimalism is about communicating a message with clarity. The byproduct of this is often simple imagery, but not the essence.
The best example of Minimalism I know is one of the first in advertising: that “Think Small” ad of Volkswagen. What makes this a great piece of advertising is there is a single idea and the message is so in-your-face clear you couldn’t possibly confuse it. The image so clean and striking that it demands attention, especially when you compare to what ads looked like the decade before. It wasn’t a trend yet, so this super simple style stood out. Where we’re at today, there is no idea or message. It just is.
Uber Bland
“Our logo is approachable, easy to read, and takes full advantage of our name recognition. Optical kerning, refined weight, and defined clear space, as well as well delineated placement in relation to other content, all help to make it as instantly recognizable as possible.” — Uber
The latest identity upgrade for Uber is a much needed one, but I hope the previous logo didn’t negatively impact the approach this time around. Uber says they wanted a logo that was a wordmark and had no need for a symbol. This is worrisome— the failures of the past symbol is not a failure of symbolism. This is how humans communicate and how complex ideas are distilled into memorable, intuitive little pieces of shape and color.
“It is the most bare-bones rendition possible of a company name. It barely registers as a logo…This new logo also marks the apex of the extreme simplification trend in logos that we’ve been seeing in the past year or two and manages to take it to the farthest end of that spectrum. You might disagree with me: but it’s actually perfect.
It’s not a perfect logo. It’s a perfect logo for Uber — now. To me, one of its biggest achievements, especially in the U.S. market, is that it’s the opposite of Lyft. It draws a clear distinction and establishes Uber as the more professional, robust, and straightforward option of the two. It may potentially also communicate an unwelcome coldness that contrasts negatively from the warmth and friendliness implied in the Lyft brand and its drivers but, as long as Uber and its drivers stay on the straight and narrow, the associations should become positive.” — Armin Vit, Under Consideration
The need for so many icons within the app proves the value of symbols. You see it clearly in the mock image above as well, with an arrow placed between two locations. It says “go here” or “from there to here” without spelling it out in English; universal icons are a language of their own and logos themselves can reach this level of communication. The Bland-ers don’t seem to believe in this though and instead go for the easy (stock type) and arguably least effective route.
Yet, with a name as short as “uber” which includes a fairly distinctive set of letters, a wordmark can act very much like a symbol. It’s a strong enough shape to transcend languages (Uber operates in 70 countries) and can be iconic enough to be a distinctive icon within the app. You don’t actually have to read it or know the meaning of the word to understand what it represents.
I don’t like it but, I think the logo works.
Finding Viceland
I’ve praised the anti-design of Viceland’s brand identity before so in fairness to Uber, I’d like to revisit that and examine why I like that identity but not Uber’s. Is the Viceland identity Minimalism? Blanding? Brutalism? They both are very stark and as Gretel (the agency behind Viceland’s design) puts it, the system is: “Functional language free of decoration, artifice and veneer”.
That sounds a lot like Brutalism.
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As much as I want to stay as close to discourse as possible, here’s where my interpretation turns absolute opinion, and dare I risk, even dogma. As always, I urge you to come to your own conclusions, and as always I will do my best to not lead you readers down dark paths.
I think Viceland’s identity is simple, but Uber’s identity is boring. Viceland was ahead of the Brutalism curve, and Uber is following a trend.
Simple: “Easily understood”. Boring: “Not interesting; dull”.
Viceland’s identity does have an idea behind it. The utilitarian aesthetic carries it’s messages clearly, the lack of veneer a means to an end, where Uber looks like they were just in it for the style. Viceland uses humor and personality in their messages along with really interesting photography but Uber feels robotic and fake — what’s interesting about any of the photos shown in the Uber ad mockups? Is Uber’s identity really a sophisticated system of information delivery, or is it reflective of a dull and lifeless company with not much to offer? Yes, the craft is good, but is there anything underneath it?
“However much we’d like advertising to be a science, it is not. It’s a subtle ever-changing art, defying formalization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation. What was effective one day will not be the next; it has lost the maximum impact of originality” — Bill Bernbach
The Road Ahead
The complete lack of expression or idea in design doesn't register to me as even being design at all. Blanding is so confident in it’s lack of expression— this is not something easily respected, so its not even a question of if I like it.
Let’s ask the important questions here that Blanding designers would ask themselves. How does this work in application? Is it distinctive amongst competitors? Is it recognizable and memorable? Does it organize information well? Is it well crafted?
Yes, I believe Uber checks all of those boxes, as I wrote here the logo does work. As much as I see dullness, others will find something beautiful and the identity alone probably wont negatively effect the app or experience. The Uber logo and identity system does the job.
Is that all there is? “Does it work?”
I believe more interesting questions to ask are: Is this what we want to be about? What am I trying to communicate? How can I do that in a simple and interesting way?
After all, what is the FedEx logo without the arrow? or Amazon without the smile? Uber’s competitor, Lyft, has all the same problems, same amount of letters in their name, and even arrived at a similar direction for their logo. Their wordmark isn’t bland though, it’s a really clever take on a tough set of letters to work with. It comes out an artistic, iconic wordmark where the craftsmanship is clear for all to see, not just veteran designers.
It’s true that modern brand identity needs to be more flexible than ever, and I think designers are trying to address that via Blanding approaches. But, designing only for the smallest spaces and applying that thing to every space the identity reaches is not the answer. I believe what identity needs is not 1 thing that works in every space, but a “responsive” identity that changes similar to the design of a website when viewed on different devices.
Another article for another time.
