Original question text by @[email protected]
What are the modern design trends you hate most? Feel free to rant! Mine are:
- Physical buttons are out of fashion, now EVERYTHING must have a touch screen instead! Especially if it makes the appliance more inconvenient to use. Like having to press a flimsy touch screen ten times to scroll through a washing machine’s programs instead of just turning a physical knob and pressing a physical start button.
- Every website looks like it’s made for a phone and was vomited by the same app in slightly different flavors of vomit.
- Actually EVERYTHING looks like it’s made for a phone… Like what’s the deal with all those hamburger menus on DESKTOP apps? Please just put a regular menu and same me some pointless clicking, it’s not like you’re lacking screen space. I especially hate that those menus can’t be opened from the keyboard like regular menus.
touch screens aren’t a design trend. they’re a way to save cost.
websites that scroll wrong, and then they stop dead on some animation. Automatic nope on the product.
Apartment complex websites that photoshop (outright lie) about what the apartment is like and you’re not allowed to see the actual place before renting (current tenant is still there, or the manager/owner just doesn’t want you to see even if it’s empty). And - there’s so much competition for apartments in the area you either sign the lease sight-unseen or you live in your car.
I’ve done OK in some of these. None were what the website pics and descriptions offered, but they were still OK. Some others, though, turned out to be absolute broken down dumps. And every single one of these places have great online reviews. Imagine that.
time to get a cheap toy drone and start taking the pictures yourself
- the lets put a lot of shit in the title bar of our app trend. Fuck off, I use that bar to pull the window around.
- The idea that I should adapt to the technology, and not the other way around. Don’t force changes on me, especially when they’re only implemented to be able to slap a new version number on the box.
Light themes as default. I don’t want to be maced with photons. Dark themes always please.
Counter offer: dark themes as default for professional software.
I don’t write software in a dimly light geek cave, I do it in a well lit office. And I can’t tell that dark red string from the background.
Farmhouse modern
Also anything that looks like it comes from Kirkland’s, because there’s a good bit of overlap:
Infinite scroll
Enshitification of search results when shopping
Planned obsolescence
Give me back my God damn full keyboard and headphone jack. (Phones)
Apps/websites that log you out too frequently for no good reason
They all have 2 factor authentication too. Sometimes I just want to be in another room than my god damn phone.
Minimalism.
It’s everywhere from company logos, to fast food interior design, and now the vexillology community swears by minimalist flag designs.
The open floor plan was the beginning of our demise.
Almighty Profit Motive™ forbid we proles find any semblance of joy in our lives and - gasp - interact with the physical world around us in any meaningful and engaged way!
No, we must be deprived of all dopamine outside of our designated corporate brainrot centers.
Every electronic item whether it be a hot water kettle, air conditioner or an UPS backup in my camper, even my electric toothbrush has to make a noise, a bing or beep when either the things starts, changes phase or finishes.
Nothing is fun anymore. Seriously. Modern designers do not design fun things anymore. No matter what it is, cell phones, cars, dining chairs, there is nothing fun. Nothing invites interaction. Nothing invites relationship building.
I saw this thing the other day. The “Jack in a Box” Television by Timo Salli for the short-lived studio SNOWCRASH. Made in 1997. Where the fuck is this energy nowadays?? Everything looks either angry or bored with us now. It’s all so antagonistic with no justification. Zero whimsy, zero intrigue. Why does this walmart toaster look like it wants to fight me? Designers’ personalities are erased with nothing to show for it but row after row of the same matte white or piano black plastic SHIT (30% OFF!)
Highly recommend the When Phones were Fun series.
Fun videos; thanks for sharing
Colors. Society has been getting more monochrome for years. And now black and white houses are all over.
Oh man yeah, everything’s monochrome. Grey houses, grey fences, white cars, grey window frames, grey kitchens. Everything is so dull.
I am about to close on my first house and it has white aluminum siding. I want to replace the siding, but what color do I choose? Also the roof is red metal.
Red and green go well together. Perhaps a natural foresty color.
Yeah, like a Christmas house. Sounds very tasteful.
any color you want. Your local paint store can can mix any of tens of thousand different colors while you wait. Paint is cheap - spend the extra cost for their best paint and it is still cheap.
make sure you don’t move where a hoa puts limits on you - and tell your realtor not to waste your time on those places.
Paint is cheap
I mean, compared to gold bars I guess. (Guess who’s painting their house)
Houses are usually white to reflect heat and because white doesn’t burn out.
My house is a reddish brown with a green metal roof. My cars are black, red, and yellow, and I do everything I can to make sure that I am surrounded by at least some kind of light and color at all times.
If I was dating a girl and I found out that she was a sad beige mom, that would be the end of the relationship.
LED indicator lights on things that have nothing to indicate. Does an electric fan need an indicator? Will you be confused about whether it’s operating or not if it doesn’t have one? Oh, it’s in swivel mode! Good thing it told me that, or I might have thought it was swiveling for other reasons.
These indicators help in troubleshooting. If the indicator says the device should be swiveling, but doesn’t swivel, you know it’s broken. If there’s no indicator, you might think you’re just too stupid to put it in swiveling mode.
Old-fashioned switches, of course, solved this problem without LEDs.
Pants and suits coming in slim fit. Went to Macy’s, they had like 5-6 of the maybe 8 clothing things with only slim fit. Mf this is fucking McDs loving USA. Ain’t nobody got time for that slim fit nonsense. Why do people not realize that shit also makes the rise some uncomfortable? At that point you just hate have testicles to the point that you may as well admit you’re into a fetish.
I’m a skinny American, and it’s very difficult to find clothes that fit me right—always has been.
Tried on a pair of slim cut jeans the other day in a box store, and the thigh fit like a pair of pantaloons. This is partly due to the trend toward baggier fits (kill me), and even one of my go-to brands sits a little more loosely than I’d like, at the moment.
On one hand, I can still walk into the store I shopped at in high school, pick up my size and cut of pant, and walk out without trying them on, knowing that they will work. On the other hand, I’d like to walk into a store for adults and be able to find my size in a cut that fits.
I knew two years ago when I saw that rich white lady wearing what looked like Jncos for rich white ladies that I was about to get fucked by the resurgence of late 90s fashion styles. Baggy doesn’t look good on someone who looks like they were built out of toothpicks.
All this to say: chin up! Your time is coming!
