Highlights
- Despite soliciting the opinions of over 11,000 people, from 11 different countries, each of the paintings looked almost exactly the same.
- Looking for freedom, we found slavery.
- We like to think that we are individuals, but we are much more alike that we wish to admit.
- from film to fashion and architecture to advertising, creative fields have become dominated and defined by convention and cliché.
- Distinctiveness has died
- nobody is thinking.
- we have been trained to be consumers and we are all consuming far too much.
- embracing chalkboard menus and reclaimed wood look to attract the affluent, design-savvy millennial.”
- They prioritise function and efficiency over a softer sense of human expression and social connection.
- Convergence is possible only at the price of shedding identity.
- What are the disadvantages of identity, and conversely, what are the advantages of blankness?
- What if this seemingly accidental, and usually regretted, homogenization was an intentional process, a conscious movement away from difference toward similarity?”
- developers are increasingly constrained by building codes.
- rapidly rising land costs cause developers to pack as many properties as possible into every site
- rising barriers to entry have caused the industry to consolidate.
- developers seek to reduce their costs by reusing the same plans across multiple sites:
- vehicles underwent the same wind tunnel tests
- optimal set of forms, proportions and dimensions.
- as a result, homogeneity in car design was increasing.
- automotive giants increasingly share vehicle “platforms” between the many brands that they operate.
- The “blanding” of automotive brand identities
- Food and Drug Administration approved Botox for use in preventing wrinkles;
- hyaluronic-acid fillers, such as Juvéderm and Restylane, which at first filled in fine lines and wrinkles and now can be used to restructure jawlines, noses, and cheeks.
- Christophe Courtois’ cinematic clichés
- In fiction you’ll see many popular books following a “girl with…” naming convention. Of course, there’s Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon
- Sweary self-help books
- draw inspiration from the same sorts of imagery and, in turn, create broadly the same types of adverts.
- The homogeneity of modern brands
- homogeneity can be found in an almost indefinite number of domains.
- people seek the safety of the familiar
- Perhaps it’s our obsession with quantification and optimisation.
- courageous companies have the chance to chart a different course.
- To be different, distinctive and disruptive.