Why All Products Look The Same: Industrial Design Trends

Industrial Design trends are heavily influenced by online social media platforms. This video talks about the implications behind the phenomenon of algorithmic populism. Product design and culture will never be the same again. But that's not necessarily a bad thing!

John Mauriello has been working professionally as an industrial designer since 2010. He is an Adjunct Professor of industrial design at California College of the Arts. All content was written and edited by John Mauriello.

[carlosdlguerra]

Funily enough, youtube sugested me to watch a guy telling me that algorithms are showing everyone the same design style

[lualdi]

When i watched futuristic movies i used to find quite unrealistic how everything in the future was depicted as being aesthetically homogenous, but now it seems like it's where we're heading to.

[HamiltonProvonsha]

I’m really hoping there can be a resurgence of intricate beauty in design. Think of old world furniture and pottery, with little flowers and vines painted on nearly everything. Think of the hand carved wood and stone. No one was thinking, “what’s the most cost effective way to do this?” but rather “how can I make this beautiful?” There was some faint echo of that in the arts and crafts movement, but where have we gone since then? So many of these new trends are sickeningly bland and devoid of that human factor.

[bobsykes]

Exactlly the same problem in the music industry. Spotify, Apple Music, etc., all promote tunes that the average listener picks, meaning a narrower and narrower selection of music is offered to a new listener looking for somethingh on a platform. We used to have Radio DJ's in big music cities, and college radio DJs, that made their life's work exploring and finding new things that they thought had a chance, and exposing them to people. Losing that is a real setback.

[_sqrrl]

* while showing a rendering of a mechanical keyboard: *
"Community of obsessively passionate users"

Boy could you ever not be more right...

[toboloso]

There's also an aspect of globalization. The ability for designers from all over the world to easily view the most popular global design diminishes local variation.

[SpudSpudoni]

I've definitely had my eye on this phenomenon for a few years now. It seems like we've now hit the point of a serious feedback loop. I've always had some problem with "designing for instagram" vs "designing for purpose", and I wonder how a few classes of designers in the coming years viewing and adding to this, will change how we approach the creative process. I think the most damning thing to our industry and searching for ideas or inspiration has been our commodification of 'likes'. Even the top designers and brands on instagram and similar, are all looking for new engaging content, and even the biggest at times (ex. Yanko) will post pretty garbage ideas and processes but will still get thousands of likes and interactions. How is a young designer supposed to see through that and understand that just because something has thousands of likes, doesn't mean it's good? Does a design with 25-100 likes mean its bad? I guess that's something the next generations of designers will have to decipher and understand for themselves, but I think there's a conversation to be had, especially in school, about how industrial design may evolve in the next 5-10 years.

[jakxob]

Consistently coming up with actually novel designs that are good takes skilled people and a lot of time. Even then it still takes more marketing effort than when adapting already popular design patterns.

As a user it's also an advantage when multiple brands produce similar looking things. This way when I already got a couple of things from brand A, the thing from brand B won't look out of place.

For a company creating a completely new design only makes sense if they think they will be able to sell an entire product line at a premium price. Strong brand recognition.

[TheBIBco]

That bit about how finding design trends on Pinterest actually homogenizes our design styles because we all end up looking at the same images is a really interesting insight!! Thanks for sharing

[braunarsch]

As an industrial designer, i've been wondering if there was anyone who would do discussions like this.... glad i found this video. subbed!

[wilb.-wilbertvanveldhuizen]

Yes, I've definitely seen this in my field as well. I've been a 3D animation and Motiongraphic designer for about 7 years now. And a lot of designers in my field have started to design things that do well on social media more and more. It, for instance, limits people to certain styles and projects that aren't too time-consuming. They start making more things like ''colorful moving blob animation-loops'' instead of projects like shortfilms that actually tell a cool/inspired story. Which in my opinion is a bit of a shame...

[Laotzu.Goldbug]

Alex I'll take _Neoliberal Consumerist Democracy As An Aesthetic_ for $500

[drebone]

It's funny that after fighting against a dated looking future design we somehow all settled on a 1960s futuristic look, every piece of tech now is either extremely round or very square, nothing else and also two colors smashed together, can't remember the last triangle or octagon since the iPhone premiered, everybody bit them and Samsung later and never looked back

[TwixtheFox]

I think a good idea that would solve this type of issue would be allowing a "diverse filter" to the search filters, showing you tons of different types of images.

[Rafagafanhotobra]

Funny is that, as much groundbreaking the looks of the Cybertruck are, algorythms must also have helped them to forge the idea, as the trend of 80's retro-futurism has been hyped for the last 10 years. So it is wildly different, but also follows a mainstream trend.

[BeIlG]

For the rendering of mock ups, I completely agree. As an illustrator, I work with lots of private sector clients. They believe most of the time that the finalized rendering and draft are the same thing. They do not realize the amount of effort and cost that would create and isn't necessary as long as there is a final product I have made is up to a polished level they like.

[Project-Air]

Really enjoying binging these videos since I discovered your channel earlier today! Subbed!

[onkarlanke]

Thats so true about high quality renders. We dont make these in practical & clients expecting these nowadays for everything. We have to explain thats not necessary to communicate ideas.

[NicoFromTheWaves]

I’ve been a brand strategist and designer for around 15 years, and noticed the same trend towards ‘blandification’. There seems to finally be some pushback, as seen in examples such as Burberrys logo, as well as heritage maximalist brands in the luxury space. Given that many mid market consumer trends echo luxury directions, perhaps we’ll see a greater shift… love your channel by the way!

[kaitlint]

You're definitely on to something. I always figured it was us becoming culturally stuck due to our idea of what futuristic/modern design was, most of that language comes from the 60's and 70's bruener and such. Mix that with how much cheaper these simpler form factors are to mass produce