Why Clip Art Was Everywhere... Until It Wasn't

Clip Art was an inescapable part of growing up in the 1990s, but it was more than that. It was a reflection of the technology that shaped the decades between the birth of the PC to the age of the smartphone.

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0:00 The Tier List of Art
1:23 Analog Clip Art - Volk Clip Books
3:19 Sponsor: Envato Elements
5:14 1984: MacPaint and the Mac ecosystem
8:17 Sidebar: Broadcast Graphics vs Home Computers
9:13 1989: Scanners and Autotrace
12:29 Case Study: Ron & Joe's Art Parts
13:58 1995: CD-ROMs and the Clip Art Collection Wars
18:06 1998: Digital Projectors level up PowerPoint
19:58 Microsoft Goes All in on Clip Art
22:18 The Post-Clipart Age & The Birth of Corporate Memphis
24:27 Reborn or Rebranded? Rightfully reviled?
25:58 No soul, no value? What Clip Art Says About Us.

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Some selected references:

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Music from Streambeats and Epidemic Sound

[LinusBoman]

Are you glad Clip Art is gone, or do you feel some nostalgia for it? Describe the clip art image forever burned in your memory, for better or worse.

[laylahassomethingtosay]

The last time I saw clip art in the wild was a couple years ago at a gas station in rural New Mexico. There was a sign in the bathroom that said “please don’t flush feminine products, ” accompanied by clip art of a handbag, a dress, and a pair of high heels. The creator had clearly just typed in something like “woman” or “feminine” into the MS Word clip art search bar. It was kinda endearing tbh

[monstrousmoss]

I’m from Gen Z, and I find early 2000s clipart very nostalgic. I really do hate the Allegria art style, not just what it stands for - something about the tiny heads unnerves me.

[alephcake]

ClipArt was the most beautiful thing for me when I was little and having fun with PowerPoint. It also housed lots of good midis.

[ImaginaryAlchemist]

I'm a millennial so I grew up during the height of Microsoft Office clipart. Those silly little pictures do actually make me a bit nostalgic. I spent so much time finding the *perfect* clipart for my school projects. Also word art! I loved playing around with that as a kid. The good old days

[trstmeimadctr]

Japan has a clipart library called irasutoya, created by a single person over 20 years, and it is unusually pervasive to this day. I see it all the time still. I think most westerners would recognize the art style if they saw it

[delecti]

I think my biggest problem with Corporate Memphis is its ubiquity. It's widely used because it's seen as unoffensive, but that also means it can't really impress. So many things in the world used to have the potential for beauty, but now they're all so safe that they're sterile. A *bit* of modern styling gives a clean impression, omnipresent modern styling feels almost dystopian.

[steverogers]

I remember the real problem with clip art was the serious overuse of a small selection of it. namely the free art that came with Microsoft Office. I never knew anyone who had paid for one of those expansion packs. The endless repetition of the same birthday image on every birthday invitation is what killed it.

[vidcas]

21:01 I’d even say the clip art aesthetic can be nostalgic for older Gen Z’ers. I remember seeing and even using clip art in the early 2000s, and that aesthetic I definitely associate with my early childhood and messing around with computers.

[vjhreeves]

Great video, Linus. I was in graphic design school at the University of FL '83-85. We were THE last class to graduate before the program introduced Macs. I learned to do all print design and production the old, manual ways--rubylith, mechanicals, Letraset, rapidograph pens, x-actos, spray mount and Bestine. All of our comp photos were *hand-rendered* using Design markers. (Which meant you HAD to have drawing skills). After graduation I worked in ad agencies and clip art was used constantly. We designers even had our own favorite styles of clip art we tended to use in our ads and print materials. I still have a few file folders of Letraset type sheets and clip art images. The agency finally transitioned to Macs around 1990 and we all had to learn on the job. It was pretty intimidating! However, we adapted eventually and it wasn't long before Quark Xpress and Adobe Illustrator were my two most loved programs.

[SoundOfYourDestiny]

Clip art is STILL huge. In fact, the last time I checked, it was a billion-dollar industry. It's simply called "stickers" now.

[nicholaswoollhead]

It shouldn't be lost on us now, that in 15-20 years time, there'll be a cohort of 20-somethings feeling nostalgic for the Corp. Memphis styles

[dsadgegdsg]

I think the backlash against Alegria/Corporate Memphis style isn't because of its associations, but of its ubiquity, and the fact that it's a single STYLE rather than a type of source for the artwork. Clip art was extremely heterogenous, as an example, you showcased numerous styles of clip art images that were used in the Microsoft Office set, and which were able to stay consistent within that style. But with Corporate Memphis, you have a countless number of artists trying to depict things in just one style, all drawing scenes where the people all have the same exaggerated traits, and using the same or similar methods to show detail or lack thereof.

And it's because of that ubiquity and sameness that gives Corporate Memphis its connotations - it's less the message being sent or the validity of the message, but the fact that how it's used and how heavily it gets used have given it permanent associations in the first place. Because of that, everyone who uses it is essentially seen as delivering the exact same message.

[puphcp]

Clip art is such a good encapsulation of the y2k aesthetic and I'm kinda sad it went away

[tinyguy]

The transition of the cat from playful to sleepy to just sentimental photos on the wall when Windows 95 rolled around really got to me. I had a ginger cat and lost him in May of last year so that little detail really got to me. :’-(

[PerobenseAlbuquerque]

Great video as always!!

You missed commenting on Mifuni Takashi, a Japanese artist who alone dominated the entire world of clip art/stock images in Japan and has his clip arts used by schools, television and even the Japanese government itself.
Drawing clip arts in the same style since 2012, one of the positive points of his work is that he doesn't charge for use if you use up to 20 of his illustrations in a project, and for educational uses, it's totally free.

Quite an interesting contrast to Corporate Memphis, an art style that dominates the entire country but is viewed positively.

[BarelyNoticeable]

There’s something so intensely satisfying about creating a Power Point and inserting clip art, using the ✨Special Fonts✨ and then summing up with adding ~transitions~ like… I miss that magic

[laurabowles]

When you moved into the end section about the modern evolution of clip art, I thought you were going to talk about things like Canva, Creative Commons/Wikimedia, and plain ol' Google Images. For the amateur/home user, those seem to be the most natural successors. They're certainly the tools I use most in the same way I did clip art back in the day. Great video - really enjoyed.

[matchanavi]

I feel like the next step for soulless art used by companies is going to be AI art. Creatives will remain adamant against it not being fine art, so it wouldn't exactly replace artists, but it could cause a problem if left unchecked.

[bjornroesbeke]

Nothing screams more "year 2000" than Clipart, Wordart, and Comic Sans combined. It was everywhere!