Why All Products Look The Same: Industrial Design Trends

Everyone should be excluding pinterest from their image searches anyway in my opinion. There are even browser plugins for it.

Rounded corner is awesome. Rounded corner is my hardline. Rounded corner is a wonder, Rounded corner is timeless, Rounded corner is honest, Rounded corner is rounded and that's what makes it awesome. And accept that rounded corners can make most of the stuff look cool and complete the composition.

That is mind-blowing

We need a video showcasing products who dont follow the trend!

So you are saying if I look long enough at examples of a trend I don't like I feel start to like it? Because I feel my tastes are much more static that that.

Too many companies want to copy Apple

and one important thing: its getting boring if not already

rofl, the cyber truck concept vs final is ... obvious to every designer.

Well it's either this or a competition of "who's got the better marketing"
at this point idk which is worse.
this is why I've advocated for a kind of "design police/judge/enforcement center" where they decide top 10 products that may exist in whatever color you want and anything less functionally can go to hell as long as you're not buying it from an artisan, choice paralysis is real

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!

The Tars from Interstellar has already set the design trend of the future.

Yeah idk man If I compare the designs I see today compared to as a kid in the early 200's, HO MAN they are better today, idk what everyone was thinking with the over complex, cheap plasticy designs with bits of transparency here and there and just really undestinct wobbily moulds??

But, if I look back at designs of things like radios tv's reccord players from like the 30's 40's yeah like, what where thoughs guys on how come there designs were all soo fricken stunning?

I'm studying it, main reason is resource preservation and stuff. It's really frustrating because when you want to make something even sliiightly decorative in your product the profs shit on me for it saying it doesn't add anything to the product so we all end up with scandinavian bs

So Well put together !

didnt expect to see mechanical keyboards here

2 plus 2 equals 4 even against our will

some weird designs before became design trend of today and tomorrow

That's why Tesla looks like a cheap plastic Toy and Porsche looks like beauty in it's purest form. Because those so called "designers" have no creativity on their own. That's why they have to turn to "minimalism". Which in itself describes the problem head on. Because it's just an excuse for not coming up with something better than "as little design as possible".

"went viral"
33k views
are you a moron?

This is happening in almost every artistic areas. Music, Cinema, Poetry, etc... They are all suffering from this homogenization ditacted by the algorthims.

I wish I could pull off a High Expectations Asian Father who got 100% in Math & Comp Sci Honours and disown social media algorithms from the definition of the word "algorithm" and find a new word for that meaning.

Great thoughts! Let me also point that a connected process which I call "instagram design" is also happening. With this words I mean that only a disappearing percentage of all of the most-liked designs can be really purchased. And even the smallest number of them are purchased by those who've pressed the like button under them. Sometimes those "likers" even have no intention to purchase them as long as it is THE cool picture they really like. This could be funny if it didn't affect the stakeholders :)

Nah. It’s what’s easy to draw in cad and easy to tool.

What keyboards were those at the end of the video

We might finally be returning to a time with universal decade long trends, after the mess that was the 90s to 2010s

just self optimizing

You literally showed cars from the 50's that all look the exact same. You aren't wrong, but it's like watching someone see a king tide for the first time. They always think it's a huge moment that will change the beach forever, but then they find out it happens every couple of months and have been happening forever. We are just syncing, as we sync we unify, as that becomes more and more inline someone breaks the mold (you can only have a mold if it's uniform... hence the phrase) and everything changes. We are getting close, maybe 2-3 years and we will see another huge design shift. We (society) currently want that sci-fi look. Soon that will go away.

Like I said, not wrong about the similarity but wrong about the problem/solution/scale. IMO

Why does stuff from the 70s look better though? They don't seem the same to me

I prefer the 80s electronics designs. Like angular lines, vents and red lights.

This seems to be the defining trait of adapters and cables on Amazon.
-silver 'metal' case
-black plastic edging and inlays
-'gold' contacts for cable ends

There is a factory full of Jony Ive clones pumping out simplistic designed tech.

One other thing is that the design of Pinterest itself influences the types of images that get popular on there. How there are multiple images put next to each other in rounded boxes, with infinite scroll. This is compared to a double page spread in a interior design magazine, in which the intended aesthetics diverge despite sharing the goal of user retention

I have a hard time believing social media algorythms hold this much influence.

I think you went too far looking for an explanation on this one. The reality is more boring and simple: it's really just that a couple of giant chinese megafactories are being subcontracted litterally every piece of electronics produced in the world right now. These factories have standard templates and components and they will straight up tell their contractors what can and cannot be done. Whoever puts their logo on the final product really doesn't matter that much in the end, the same factories produce apple, samsung, huawei you name it, they couldn't make a novel design if you wanted to because those factories will straight up refuse to do anything that doesn't allow them to use their infrastructure at 100% capacity for any amount of time and changing anything in the design would be inefficient.
It's also the reason blueprints for phones are so secretive and you can't repair them; the companies have to keep up the charade that there is an actual difference between the products and that they're not litterally all the same down to the chips and electronics except for the 2 or 3 features that they market around.
Reality is boring.

it's kind of funny how the internet has ruined literally everything

movie equilibrium the office desk scene

I love the phrase “algorithmic populism”.

Are you dissing the monkey feeding machine ...
Oooh, monkey like banana. Here monkey have a banana!
Oooh, monkey ate banana, monkey must like banana!
Here monkey have a banana ....

I love my open-source products with bare motherboard showing through, 3d printed cases and CNC markings.

this is why its important for your number one design goal to be uniqueness. all other factors are secondary

"Nooo! conformity! how could we let this happen! ahhhh stop the conformity now i cant handle it!"
- guy in this video AKA fatherless

this trend is boring. I want something interesting to look at.

Because all products are useless garbage made in the same factory for the sole purpose of stealing peoples money then breaking so they have to buy more useless crap. Welcome to 2022 capitalism. YAY!

Other than those, another thing is how we are close to peak practicality.
Take phones and tablets, do you think a circular or triangular phone/tablet is practical? Or is the standard rectangle more practical?
Also, I can't stress this object enough, guns. Guns of modern era have peaked in practicality, guns from scifi like Halo, gears of war, even Titanfall/apex legends can't beat modern design in practicality.
Sure there are other things that can be "designed" while not sacrificing practicality, but those would be considered more as niche than useful. And unless you got them big extra bucks, you're likely just gonna buy the most practical design. There's a reason why Toyota outsells Alfa romeo, former is practical, reliable, and average, latter is filled with spirit, beautiful, but unreliable.

Sssshhhhhh, dont speak to Loudy about this or you'll awaken the AI behind all these algorthims