Design for monkeys
A black and white hippo layered on top of a Milky Way background, with a lime green laser grid on top. Does this space-age kook sound familiar?
It certainly did to Cog Design. Cog creative director Michael Smith says, ‘There’s a fashion in the design world, particularly on online blog platforms, where everything has started looking very similar, like the Prog Rock album covers of my youth.’
As a bit of fun, and to hopefully to highlight the flaws of this kind of trendy, style-over-substance design, the team at Cog have created the Shakey Monkey Space App.
After downloading the app, ‘designers’ can just shake their phone and create an artwork featuring a random combination of elements in five different areas, such as pattern or background. Over a million artworks can be produced by the app, each with an animal and space-age background.
Smith says, ‘Every magazine, every website, every student portfolio seemed to have a poster featuring an animal in space with some geometric patterns. The App is full of overtly styled nonsense, such as struck through type, and tiny white-outs on a dark background.’
He adds, ‘Now the Hoxton people in their skinny jeans can kick back.’
The design can be shared via Twitter or saved as a poster complete with human hands – a nod to another trend in student portfolios at the moment.
And who will use it? ‘People with a sense of irony’, laughs Smith.
Cog Design’s Shakey Monkey Space App can be found here.
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