User:Mridenour02/sandbox

Corporate Memphis is a term used (often disparagingly) to describe a flat, geometric art style, widely used in Big Tech illustrations in the late 2010s and early 2020s. It has received backlash within popular culture as feeling uninspired and dystopian, as well as having a perceived link to corporate advertising.

Common motifs include flat human characters in action (sometimes described as being "on the go"), with disproportionate features such as long and bendy limbs, minimal facial features, and bright colors without any blending. Another key feature is the choice of bright, non-representational colors chosen for skin tones, most commonly blue, to create a sense of ethnic ambiguity and universality. The style draws from vector-based illustration that became popular with the advent of digital artmaking software in the early 21st century.

Facebook adopted their own version, called "Alegria", in 2017. This illustration system, which was originally commissioned by Facebook from the design agency BUCK Studios, became a model of visual branding that other large corporate entities within the realm of tech, notably Lyft, Hinge and Airbnb, were quick to adopt.

The style has since been criticized for being generic, overused, and attempting to sanitize public perception by presenting human interaction in utopian optimism. Critics have argued that it homogenizes imagery of human connection to an extent that removes important differences, and that it adds a "friendly face" to the operations of capitalism. Illustrators working in this style refer to it as flat art. It is also known as the Alegria style, Big Tech art style, or Humans of Flat.

The term is a reference to the Memphis Group, an Italian architecture group from the 1980s known for its designs that are often thought to be garish.

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 * 5) ^ "Corporate Memphis; the design style that quietly took over the internet". shots. Retrieved 2021-05-11.