From fashion to web design: what 2020 has taught me.
2020 was a difficult year for most of us. Covid 19 forced us to rethink every single detail of our daily life, how we work, how we connect with others and, in consequence, how we live. Therefore, all this changes were reflected in design.
I have never been an eager reader of fashion blogs because they tend to have an over simplistic view of fashion and superficial trends. However, luckily I came across two more than interesting fashion accounts lately. One is from an Argentinian living in Canada (@martinacablog) and the other form other Argentinian co-creator of @thenakedrecord Maria (@onlyjustmaria) whose articles have made me think about how covid 19 and the quarantine made us change our views about our bodies and fashion. We, as a society have been pushed away from what is traditionally and conventionally “pretty”, “appropriate”,” girly/masculin”, to desperately seek for comfort and individuality. Quarantine and being lock down made us reevaluate who we are and how that is reflected in how we look. The economic crisis that came as a consequence, hand by hand with the already existing issue of the effects of fast fashion in global warming, also pushed us a step further and reevaluate what we buy.
Consequently, fashion and design trends that developed this year have being more than disrupting. “Ugly sandals”, weird shapes in tailoring, oversize everything and garments that can be used in many ways plus the already blurry limits between male/female clothing became the most popular items.
They all seem to have one point in common: making one visual element stand out in a brutal way getting as near as possible to the ugly, over proportion while the other elements seem to back down a little bit. No subtlety is needed, we are not living in times of delicate subtle manners, we are living in abrupt times with drastic changes.
Something similar seems to have happened in web design. With the constant relevance that ux/ui is taking, web pages seem to rely back on minimal, brutal design. And these not only apply to big brands or companies but also in local, smaller businesses. Sometimes is for the best, the minimum of elements needed make them more efficient and easy to use. Sometimes it works for the worse. Huge typography, over simplistic icons and exaggerated proportions, invade web design pages. Over minimalistic, brutalistic pages are not friendly enough for the medium user. In either case, they seem to make an unforgettable impact on the viewer. For anyone remotely interested in usability, this is not enough.
As in fashion, web brutalistic and minimal design works only when combined properly, as a complete outfit, to convey a clear unforgettable message of the way we are living, of the time we are trying to walk through and coming out alive. Better to say, not only alive but an improved more resilient, more determined, more defiant and secure of ourselves as a society.
