Corporate Memphis vs Flat Design / Vector Minimalism
コーポレート・メンフィス / フラットデザイン / ベクターミニマリズム
Corporate Memphis comes from Illustration Styles and Flat Design / Vector Minimalism from UI Expression. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Corporate Memphis
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Explains digital services as safe and friendly through simplified figures, geometry and soft color.
Flat Design / Vector Minimalism
Reduces information to plain planes and color, portable across screens and media.
| Corporate Memphis | Flat Design / Vector Minimalism | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | mid-2010s– | 2010s– |
| Family | Illustration Styles | UI Expression |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Exaggerated body ratios / Flat color / Geometric plants / White grounds | Uniform planes / Simple shapes / Few shadows / Clear color |
| Best used for | Explaining how a new service works in a short space on screen · Giving hiring and benefits pages one relaxed and consistent tone | Light, understandable explanation · Large sets of consistent figures |
| Type | Geometric sans at light weight, headlines kept to one line | A rounded sans-serif |
| Composition | Keep the white ground open and set figures diagonally toward the text | Simple silhouettes and clear hierarchy |
| Material | Flat color without outlines, held to two or three muted hues | Three to five colors; shadows only when they mean something |
| Caution | Reducing everything to shapes anyone could draw leaves images indistinguishable from competitors, flattens the people into symbols of diversity, and tells the viewer nothing about what the company does. | Figures easily become generic. Define your own ratios, lines and color rules. |