y2k my beloved

recently i learned the name of an aesthetic i lived through and the name is so perfectly in line with the aesthetic it's great. it's called frutiger aero

god looking at it makes me thirsty

i'm sure this is mostly nostalgia talking, but there's something about this style that feels very comfortable to me. i've fluctuated on "minimalism" several times throughout my life as someone who decided to have opinions on styles/aesthetics. and right now, i am over it. maximalism all the way baby. i'm a literal clown, i appreciate a visual experience that is an assault on the sense. and while i wouldn't call frutiger maximalist, it definitely takes advantage of the space it occupies. it feels clean, but fun and friendly and flirty. it's just... lushness found in a digital space. the designers using this aesthetic were really ust having fun with it.

i am by no means an aesthetic scholar, or whatever the fuck someone who pays a lot of attention to visual style trends would be called. i'm just someone who knows what he likes. and the recent corporate-driven aesthetics i see now are exhaustingly sterile. you get some flat buttons with a sans serif font. you get a light mode with a white background, or a dark mode with a dark grey background. you get neatly folded link dropdowns and simplistic icons representative of bells or hearts or a thumbs up.

i get it. you wanna make things widely appealing. like, as widely appealing as possible. but you lose so much in the search of that. i am sure i am preaching to the choir here. if you're reading this you probably have some affections for gaudy design choices. and that's why i love maximalism as a concept. like, the core of the concept is "go fucking buckwild and put whatever shit you want together make it loud make it loud make it LOUDER" and we need more of that in all aspects of life, not just a wardrobe filled with vibrant patterns (though you know i love that too). be excessive in your expression. make some ugly shit. it is your duty as a conscious being to do so