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Why editorial illustrations look so similar these days


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challenging.”Meyer
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Positivity     43.00%   
   Negativity   57.00%
The New York Times
SOURCE: https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/
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Summary

It’s hard to miss the trend.Here’s an example on the Quartz app:Another instance in the New York Times opinion section:On the cover of Los Angeles magazineOn Time magazine:A recent instance in Le Monde:The illustration style even routinely appears on the cover of The New Yorker:Note that all these examples were made by different illustrators.Query the word “illustration” on Google Image search and you’ll see these type of results.The vector-based style, characterized by flat colors, simple shapes and a pared-down color palette, doesn’t have an official name. The answer boils down to three T’s: technology, taste, and terrible pay.Flat illustrations, for lack of a better term, is a subset of a style called “flat design.” It’s the design principle behind the scourge of minimalist logo makeovers that’s prevalent in corporate branding. “Working in Adobe Illustrator allows me to change sizes, move pieces, thus giving me a great deal of flexibility when it comes to editorial work,” explains Meyer. You take some of the ideas of product-building [software development] into illustration, like the agile method, which is this idea of working fast and iterating rather than producing one final piece.” An illustrator’s ability to change elements on the fly allows them to respond to requests from clients faster and cheaper. Many digital illustrators working in the flat style also cite artists Ellsworth Kelly and Henri Matisse’s cut paper collages as influences.Khoi Vinh, Adobe’s senior principal designer and former design director of the New York Times suggests that “the prevalence of a single, monocultural aesthetic” might be blamed on software development firms who cling to the flat design aesthetic. “Product illustrations are there to make the user’s experiences easier; editorial illustrations are there to make the reader’s experience more interesting—even more challenging.”Meyer, whose illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, Time and Chicago magazine, argues that it’s less about the media but about the quality of ideas.

As said here by Anne Quito