Or, What’s Out Is Out, Part 1
Want a look that says you never left the 80s? Try these trends whose trains left the station when Madonna met Prince and Harry Met Sally:
- Purple
- Black
- Grey
- Teal
- Mint green
- Dusty blue
- Mauve
- All white
- Fake kids’ writing, brush lettering, bubble lettering typefaces
- Prep-school/university-style type and insignias
- Grossly overpriced wine lists
- Overt sexiness
- Overt masculinity
- Skinny black ties
- Scruffiness
- Postmodernism
- High gloss
- Memphis (Italian) furniture
And, though these are hopefully nobody’s business design choices:
- Fishnet stockings
- Dog collars
That’s the Little List of 80s Don’ts. Can your company make tasteful or tongue-in-cheek use of an element from this list? Maybe, if done with skill. Maybe, if you know your Ideal Customer very, very well.
Whether starting up or considering a redesign, be cautious. These tired color, fashion, and furnishing trends have been done, and mark your business as uninformed. Using interior design, graphic design, and staff uniforms/grooming standards from another era can limit your customer base to people who have positive associations with the decade in question.
I could have linked to all sorts of examples, but I don’t want to be in the business of calling people out. I see unwittingly out-of-touch design all over as I travel, both in the real world and the Internet, and so do you. Because the 80s are not so very far away (to some), you may have been so busy that you didn’t notice your design strategy was in crisis. If you’re guilty, take charge today and start planning a revamped Customer Experience!
Moderation in all things, and if you’ve got to have that purple and black color scheme (oh, please don’t!), find a way to renew, revitalize, and take the concept into this millennium. Time warps are only funny to a very limited market!
Care to agree, disagree, or add to the list of dated 80s design trends? Leave a comment below!
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
What got me started? If You Lived Through It Once…
Say buh-bye, 90s. Click to read Part 2.
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10 March 2008, 8:05 am
Long sleeved metal shirts – the ones with the white sleeves.
(Looks at his Iron Maiden white sleeved shirts in the closet… and leaves them in the closet!!!)
10 March 2008, 3:04 pm
Brett,
Van Halen, Boston, Rush tees here…. Long list of concert tees, actually. I could go on and on. But I don’t wear them to work, and the color combos on those shirts are exactly the types that I’m seeing people using without thought right now. One of the Van Halen tees, if I recall, was black-white-and-teal, mainly. Those colors would scream dated on a business card, website, or storefront today.
Stay tuned…
Kelly
10 March 2008, 9:55 pm
Dang ! Now I’m crushin’ for Madonna again !
And everything else on this list !
BTW – I’m lovin’ the design here
10 March 2008, 10:38 pm
Mike,
I’ve got a lovely pink-and-lavender tee from… the year she was married to Sean Penn… which tour was that? Oh, dear, the memory fails me.
[Must... not... open... storage boxes...]
I’ve got a concert tee for every “what were we thinking of” trend, now that Brett’s put me thinking that way. I could have angled this series a whole different way, but thank goodness it’s all in the can so no one will have to be subjected to my new “t-shirts as a metaphor for design that’s frozen in time” concept, except here in the comments.
You can love it all, but privately now. I’ve got three Van Halen CDs in the car, where they live happily with a zillion CDs from Schubert to Santana. They will never be played in the background of a PowerPoint presentation unless the pitch is to Eddie and Alex… actually I’d have to bet that would be annoying to them, too.
Thanks for lovin’ the design, which I hope is fresher than OU812, but will probably not have the lifespan of Like a Virgin. Time-stamped or not, some things are forever.
By the way, Simplenomics rocks. Thanks for your 2¢, Mike!
Until later,
Kelly
11 March 2008, 11:52 am
Kelly,
Oh, and Motorhead, can’t forget Motorhead… they might cry again!
Like you, I certainly wouldn’t wear them to work. You & I have too much class for that. (I don’t even know you, and I can tell you have class.)
And the old CD’s too – that the beauty of iPod, you can rip all of it and then no one knows… heh
Brett
11 March 2008, 1:14 pm
Brett,
Strictly suits for me. Even then, I collected the t-shirts more than I wore them. Except that one long-sleeved VH, which has holes in it from wear and I still couldn’t bear to throw it out.
Poor Motorhead. Calling all day and night, asking when I can fit them in… lots of tears. You wouldn’t think that from their looks.
When music’s out in the atmosphere I can ignore it and get on with work, but when it’s right in my ears I start toe-tapping, dancing in my chair, and I get completely distracted. iPods and their prehistoric cousin the Walkman caused me to get too many funny looks, so now I just belt out the tunes in the car. Funny looks from strangers beats funny looks from coworkers.
Until later,
Kelly
22 March 2008, 7:03 pm
Fishnets are actually back. Not the old-school plain black ones, but the colored and more patterned ones are definitely back. And thank goodness, because they seem to be nudging out the unfortunate resurgence of black leggings under tunics…
22 March 2008, 7:12 pm
Moxie,
Thanks for your comment.
They won’t really work for business attire. I think that we can agree on that.
Regards,
Kelly