Is Design Getting Boring?

As we are moving into the modern age, design is evolving. To the average designer, we love the looks of the modern design brands, businesses, graphics etc. But to the average consumer, we hear the phrase along the lines of “every business is becoming boring, minimal and is lacking character”.

Is this really the case? Is the world of design really becoming boring and bland?

The short answer.…..no. The long answer…...no.

Let me explain why design is not getting boring but is only getting better.

Proportional Density

Proportional density is the design principle of the amount of information conveyed in an object or environment per unit element. You can estimate PD by dividing the number of deep proportions by the number of surface proportions.

Basically what this means is that simple objects and environments that are rich in meaning are perceived to be the most compelling and more appealing in terms of design.

Less stuff; more meaning. This is good. More stuff; less meaning. This is not good.

As a brand, you give meaning to what represents your business visually, directly or indirectly. Usually these artifacts will tell your story as a business and portray your message. When it comes to brand identity, these artifacts project your personality through colour, shape and overall vibe.

Brand design is about the message and the foundation first. The visual stuff is just a by-product of that.

That's why you see so many logos of the world's biggest brands go much simpler. Are they boring? No. There are years of history with that brand. They don’t need anything extra to tell their story. Their simple logo does that for them.

With that being said, when it comes to your brand’s design, dont go simple for the sake of going simple. Add as much as you like to your logo, website, graphic, ad creatives, etc. but make sure they give meaning to your brand story or else you run the risk of making everything look too boring.

Pleasant to Look At

There is no doubt that when we see modern brand designs, they are aesthetically pleasing to look at. They look “clean”.

In our daily lives, everything is so “business” and so chaotic and fast. In terms of marketing, you are constantly bombarded with thousands of ads.

As a brand, you don’t want to add to the existing chaos and stress. Having a much simpler brand identity is what helps cut through that noise. When an emotional response from your audience is achieved, you want to make sure that response is a positive one.

A strong message with a simple design is so much better for content marketing and your campaigns as a whole.

Message Matters More Now

In this new world of business, there are so many others that do exactly what you do; maybe slightly different.

So how do these businesses stay unique? Well, some do and some don’t.

Those that don’t only focus on the visual elements of their brand; their logo and their font. Maybe they’ll throw in an AI generated colour palette and that's about it.

Those businesses that are unique focus more on their message and their story. Any business can have a nice font and pretty colours, but it’s the unique ones that share their story with their audience and any visuals used will complement that.

When the world of business is so vast, these businesses stay ahead of their competition because they push their message first before how they look.