Why Clip Art Was Everywhere... Until It Wasn't

[@LinusBoman]

Check out Envato Elements 👉 1.envato.market/c/3671954/1159027/4662?subId1=video3 Are you glad Clip Art is gone, or do you feel some nostalgia for it? Describe the clip art image forever burned in your memory, for better or worse.

[@pup64hcp]

Do the flying toasters count? Lol

[@CastrateThePig]

I have so much nostalgia for ClipArt that I didn’t even know I had!

[@onbearfeet]

I have actual flashbacks to Screen Beans, and not in a good way.

[@notaninstrument7707]

That transition into the sponsor was super smooth

[@katrinabryce]

I had forgotten that it used to be called clip-art, but it still very much exists.

[@laylahassomethingtosay]

The last time I saw clip art in the wild was a couple years ago at a gas station in rural New Mexico. There was a sign in the bathroom that said “please don’t flush feminine products,” accompanied by clip art of a handbag, a dress, and a pair of high heels. The creator had clearly just typed in something like “woman” or “feminine” into the MS Word clip art search bar. It was kinda endearing tbh

[@SimonBuchanNz]

I mean, don't flush those either!

[@konbini2004]

Tbf I don't think there was ever clip art of a sanitary pad or tampon

[@Tiny_Koi]

I'm from New Mexico and I think I remember that one that youre talking about. NM has sort of always been "behind the times" but thats part of its charm.

[@hahaweedlol4933]

Very normal for new mexico, i still see some signs like that! I'm assuming all of our work computers here run like windows 7 or something and that's why.

[@LeftoverPuppies]

I can picture it so vividly! Bonus points if the paper it's printed on is wavy and rumpled from water

[@monstrousmoss]

I’m from Gen Z, and I find early 2000s clipart very nostalgic. I really do hate the Allegria art style, not just what it stands for - something about the tiny heads unnerves me.

[@nine1690]

It’s called the uncanny valley, and yeah its all dehumanizing since that art is meant to depict us, the consumer

[@triton62674]

It's inhuman, who could meaningfully connect to something that's made for everyone.

[@bestVeg4s]

@@triton62674well said!

[@99xara99]

@@nine1690 I don't think allegria is in the uncanny valley, it's a very abstract depiction. Not the right term

[@kubli365]

globohomo

[@alephcake]

ClipArt was the most beautiful thing for me when I was little and having fun with PowerPoint. It also housed lots of good midis.

[@gammaboost]

Midis? Boy, I want to hear some of those...

[@AliciaSykes]

When I was a kid, before internet was readily available, I'd spend hours browsing MS Office's built-in clip art library! In hindsight, I do think the images were quite naf and soulless, but seeing them again is just so nostalgic!

[@alephcake]

@@gammaboost I remember browsing through Office 2003s (or 2007s, I don't remember) files and spotting the clipart folder. That's where all the midis were located.

[@Aeduo]

@@gammaboost There's a geocities MIDIs collection floating around.

[@parkman29]

Now memes

[@delecti]

I think my biggest problem with Corporate Memphis is its ubiquity. It's widely used because it's seen as unoffensive, but that also means it can't really impress. So many things in the world used to have the potential for beauty, but now they're all so safe that they're sterile. A *bit* of modern styling gives a clean impression, omnipresent modern styling feels almost dystopian.

[@RJRC_105]

This. Corporate Memphis is sinister because it's an anodyne world in which happiness is mandatory and risk is always absent. It's a world with the crusts cut off, and the real world is all crusts and that is what makes it worth living.

[@HA-me3ed]

It's also just absolutely hideous to the point where it's outright disgusting to look at. I personally find it offensive because it's not just ugly; it's so ugly that it's obviously intentional. It's like any company that uses it is saying "Fuck humanity. I hate everyone so I want to intentionally make things as ugly as possible so I can make the world a worse place to live in, even in the smallest ways. Enjoy these grotesquely deformed humanoids. That's how I think of humans." It's insulting and it feels like an attack on the soul and basic human dignity. I honestly consider it a form of artistic terrorism and I think any company which produces this stuff should face strong legal penalties for crimes against culture.

[@redmage777]

@@HA-me3ed That and the "Cal Arts" Cartoon Style.

[@Lilliathi]

I'm deeply offended by inoffensiveness, and that's not even a joke.

[@Lilliathi]

@@HA-me3ed This also. I think back to the ancient Greeks venerating the beauty of the human body in white marble, yet here we are with our discoloured pinheads.

[@trstmeimadctr]

Japan has a clipart library called irasutoya, created by a single person over 20 years, and it is unusually pervasive to this day. I see it all the time still. I think most westerners would recognize the art style if they saw it

[@Meimoons]

Yeah the artist is Takeshita Mifune!

[@funtonite]

You see Irasutoya all over Japan! Especially in covid, reminding people about mask etiquette, washing hands, and closing the lid when flushing. The designs are cute and consistent. It's a lifesaver when I need to make some vocabulary flashcards. I use it extensively as a teacher.

[@12warmacha]

I think the internet has definitely made it visible in the west, but it was not something that showed up very much here pre 2010s

[@artuno1207]

I was introduced to it because of Virtual KZbinrs using them along in their streams and presentations.

[@Sparkle8205]

Oh my gods I know the EXACT style you’re talking about :0

[@dsadgegdsg4740]

I think the backlash against Alegria/Corporate Memphis style isn't because of its associations, but of its ubiquity, and the fact that it's a single STYLE rather than a type of source for the artwork. Clip art was extremely heterogenous, as an example, you showcased numerous styles of clip art images that were used in the Microsoft Office set, and which were able to stay consistent within that style. But with Corporate Memphis, you have a countless number of artists trying to depict things in just one style, all drawing scenes where the people all have the same exaggerated traits, and using the same or similar methods to show detail or lack thereof. And it's because of that ubiquity and sameness that gives Corporate Memphis its connotations - it's less the message being sent or the validity of the message, but the fact that how it's used and how heavily it gets used have given it permanent associations in the first place. Because of that, everyone who uses it is essentially seen as delivering the exact same message.

[@albertamalachi3560]

So corporate memphis ended up becoming like how people see comic sans and papyrus? Well, not exactly, but kind of?

[@alestrius]

Taking a moment to sit and think, I don't think it's the implications/connotations of what's behind the style that I don't like personally, but rather, just the simplicity and lack of detail. I'm not a fan of flat colours without even just cell shading, and it just looks ugly to me. Even the image used for "bitcoin powered smart toilet" which is a phrase that makes me shudder to even type looked more aesthetically appealing to me personally on a style basis, even if I hate the usage for it way, way more.

[@abbythings]

no it's just genuinely ugly

[@Leeqzombie]

@@alestrius I blame Microsoft's Metro design language and later Google's Material design language for this current flat trend that you and I hate. Microsoft was an early pioneer with this flatness, but then Android shifted that way too, Material Design came out, and then everything was flat.

[@chrischaf]

I'd never heard of "Corporate Memphis style" before this video. I didn't even know drawings of people like that was considered "a style". I suppose I've only seen occasional examples of it on advertising, but not enough to have thought about it beyond the vague notion of finding it ugly. But when it came up in this video, with all these "people" drawn like that MOVING AROUND (animated) with their weirdly overly long upper arms and disproportionate-ness, the way they moved around was so UN-HUMAN that it made me want to crawl out of my skin. So *alien* and not-in-a-good way, like some surreal grotesque image had suddenly come to life, like as if a picture of a black widow with arms that were scaled and slithered like snakes, suddenly came to life and started slither-walking around on my desk or something. I *physically wanted to GET AWAY* from what my eyes were taking in. So, I don't know why *others* hate it, maybe some just want to hate on it because "it's everywhere" (apparently not everywhere *I* look, but apparently everywhere some people look), or perhaps because they are the kind of people that hate whatever it's trendy to hate this week, or because they are offended on some level where they consider it offensive due to some artistic grounds... But I can tell you right now, I'm hate it because it's freaking disgusting. It offends me not only on pretty much any artistic grounds I can think of, but also on more levels than I can possibly count. Seeing that sh*t start moving around on my monitor drives me to want to leave the room, clear down on some sort of primal fight-or-flight sort of level. Triggered. It *triggers me*, I'm TRIGGERED by that sh*t. Get that Sh*t aWAY from me lol I'm laughing, but i'm *not* joking

[@steverogers8163]

I remember the real problem with clip art was the serious overuse of a small selection of it. namely the free art that came with Microsoft Office. I never knew anyone who had paid for one of those expansion packs. The endless repetition of the same birthday image on every birthday invitation is what killed it.

[@lettuceplus1]

It's the same way with fonts when you think about it. Microsoft's stock fonts really aren't bad at all, but decades of seeing Papyrus or Curlz on professional flyers can really turn an entire generation against them. Giving design elements to people that don't know how to use them is a great way to doom them.

[@cericat]

We did, but then too we were running a home print shop after my mother's first husband got retrenched so it helped fill in some of our needs when asked to do business cards, flyers, etc. I remember mum spending a week tweaking a clipart coffee pot into a Turkish style for a local coffee shop's logo for their menus. I think it's still their business logo until the day they shutdown or at least something very similar. Still have a big Broderbund PrintShop collection in my software library because yes sometimes it sufficed to do what people wanted, not sure if the disks still work because it's been a long while since I last setup a 5 1/4" drive to run floppies. We switched to Aldus PageMaker (yikes showing my age doubly here) and CorelDraw about 92 IIRC. I think half the keyboard macros for WordPerfect 5.1 are engrained in my memory for good though, the Windows 3.1 version was such a step backwards, crashed constantly.

[@Dave5400]

@@lettuceplus1 A bit harsh maybe, but I do actually agree. People seem to just go for the most kitsch font like Joker, but I always make a point of using Times New Roman. Clean looking, but not widely used enough to be ordinary like Ariel.

[@lettuceplus1]

@@Dave5400 @Dave 5400 times new roman? not widely used? it's only one of, if not, the most commonly used MS font you could name. only reason it doesn't get the same flack is because it's meant to be utilitarian, so people arent bothered to realize what font they're looking at when reading it. i dunno if it's because of where you live but if you're american, you can't convince me you haven't had to write an academic paper in times new roman. it's practically a standard

[@Dave5400]

@@lettuceplus1 Well, I've never had to write an academic paper, and I'm not American, so maybe that explains it!

[@vidcas1711]

21:01 I’d even say the clip art aesthetic can be nostalgic for older Gen Z’ers. I remember seeing and even using clip art in the early 2000s, and that aesthetic I definitely associate with my early childhood and messing around with computers.

[@toothfairy10133]

i associate it with the old dark ict rooms at my primary school. simpler times :(

[@cxssetteman182]

Ig you meant Zillenials, not Gen-Z to be specific.

[@glitchyneopet6011]

i'm 15 and i absolutely loved the clip art in office 2007 on my mom's computer back in like 2013, it just looked so zany :P

[@virivren]

@@cxssetteman182 I'm 2004 and I feel the same way about clip art, so lol

[@acookie7548]

@@cxssetteman182 nahhh i was born in 2003 and it reminds me of classroom signs, i myself made a similar poster for my workplace lmao

[@vjhreeves]

Great video, Linus. I was in graphic design school at the University of FL '83-85. We were THE last class to graduate before the program introduced Macs. I learned to do all print design and production the old, manual ways--rubylith, mechanicals, Letraset, rapidograph pens, x-actos, spray mount and Bestine. All of our comp photos were *hand-rendered* using Design markers. (Which meant you HAD to have drawing skills). After graduation I worked in ad agencies and clip art was used constantly. We designers even had our own favorite styles of clip art we tended to use in our ads and print materials. I still have a few file folders of Letraset type sheets and clip art images. The agency finally transitioned to Macs around 1990 and we all had to learn on the job. It was pretty intimidating! However, we adapted eventually and it wasn't long before Quark Xpress and Adobe Illustrator were my two most loved programs.

[@konbini2004]

Makes me wonder why they taught us graphic design the old way at school in the early 2000s.

[@profezzordarke4362]

@@konbini2004 You mean you learned the manual ways to do stuff?

[@yrobtsvt]

@@konbini2004 hey, now you have a rare skill that historic film makers might be seeking out!

[@theashguardian8640]

I'm graduating in two months with a Graphic Design degree and nearly everything I design is digitally made. I work at a printing press for the last two years and my co-worker got her degree in the late 90's. She tells me all about the different ways the career used to operate certain tasks and its SO MINDBLOWING to me. I love hearing about this!! I took a Graphic Design History class, that taught from the Victorian era to the 1960's. But surprisingly I can never find information on what it was like living as a designer past the 60's anywhere. I'm so glad I found this comment. I've taken up an Illustration minor last year just to give myself some balance on traditional and digital media. Sometimes I wonder how different my skillsets would be before the career became so dominantly digitized!

[@itoibo4208]

Next, the story will be "I made art before AI, when we did the work with our own hands."

[@ImaginaryAlchemist]

I'm a millennial so I grew up during the height of Microsoft Office clipart. Those silly little pictures do actually make me a bit nostalgic. I spent so much time finding the *perfect* clipart for my school projects. Also word art! I loved playing around with that as a kid. The good old days

[@peteroselador6132]

Late Y/early Z here. I remember school projects that required “x” amount of clipart and wordart to make sure you could “use the tools of the future”. That sentiment aged like milk but the results aged like a fine wine

[@clarisaxpianist]

@@peteroselador6132zillenial here, also remember having word art and clip art requirements for projects. I was also in Yearbook Club and we definitely overused them creating our pages

[@gh.stb12rd]

I still be doing wordart shit on google docs to keep it traditional and gd honouring

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

It shouldn't be lost on us now, that in 15-20 years time, there'll be a cohort of 20-somethings feeling nostalgic for the Corp. Memphis styles

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

I don't feel comfortable with the Idea.

[@AshBashVids]

I don't think anyone likes the style, to be honest.

[@ryan.1990]

Yeah no

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

@@AshBashVids I don't think anyone liked clips art at the time either. It's aesthetic qualities aren't important to whether they will become popular for nostalgia reasons.

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

@@ryan.1990 how so?

[@SoundOfYourDestiny]

Clip art is STILL huge. In fact, the last time I checked, it was a billion-dollar industry. It's simply called "stickers" now.

[@anna-fleurfarnsworth104]

Oh shit you're right

[@artyb27]

Wait, stickers are a billion-dollar industry? I thought they were just those annoying graphics that everyone accidentally sends once in a while when trying to get to their emoji keyboard.

[@Omega-mr1jg]

​@@artyb27i think its mostly popular in east asia?

[@roilo8560]

Furry stickers are the new big industry

[@duzacsp1376]

@@Omega-mr1jg very popular in south america as well. I'd say I receive around 30 stickers a day trough messages

[@PerobenseAlbuquerque]

Great video as always!! You missed commenting on Mifuni Takashi, a Japanese artist who alone dominated the entire world of clip art/stock images in Japan and has his clip arts used by schools, television and even the Japanese government itself. Drawing clip arts in the same style since 2012, one of the positive points of his work is that he doesn't charge for use if you use up to 20 of his illustrations in a project, and for educational uses, it's totally free. Quite an interesting contrast to Corporate Memphis, an art style that dominates the entire country but is viewed positively.

[@1000Tomatoes]

It really is a collection so associated with Japan that just about any English KZbin video mildly related to Japan often uses it. From personal experience Japanese classes use it a lot too. Its to the point that they even sell Irosutoya figures based on some the more widely used ones and there are collaborations with popular media.

[@deenrqqwe6794]

It’s consistent in a way that CM isn’t. Personal Theory: I think one of the reasons why CM isn’t liked aside form ubiquity, is the fact that it’s associated with diversity in advertising. And that’s why the shapes and people represented often feels strange.

[@robokill387]

It's often disingenuous, like it makes people multicoloured with blue, purple and green skin not to be diverse, but to sidestep actual representation because it doesn't want to be controversial to anybody.

[@HasekuraIsuna]

Surely his family name must be Mifune?

[@cosmosisrose]

@@deenrqqwe6794 I think it’s more that the diversity feels fake. the shapes and colours don’t actually represent anybody, instead of representing everybody

[@tinyguy9398]

The transition of the cat from playful to sleepy to just sentimental photos on the wall when Windows 95 rolled around really got to me. I had a ginger cat and lost him in May of last year so that little detail really got to me. :’-(

[@halftimedeus8871]

Same, also that presentation on animals in PowerPoint...

[@pup64hcp]

Clip art is such a good encapsulation of the y2k aesthetic and I'm kinda sad it went away

[@TheDiner50]

It did not go away! (yet). People from around y2k that make posters or whatever still use and structure stuff like my teachers did back in 1995-2010. It is quite sad how you litterly by just looking at a poster or whatever can date the person that made it. And it is not like they are becoming younger. Sigh. Only really see it in villages now. Not even schools really use that clip art that was used all over the place in school etc. Nearly wherever you looked in a school there was a printed and plastic protected paper with text and some random clip art thing. Now they have you use a app or whatever. And still fight the kids to not use the phones somehow when they put everything on a mandatory phone app. I don't know anymore. I was agents using clip art that looked like it was from the 2000s on my CV. But I mean that is exactly why it is going away. A house, a phone, a letter. It was actually not the worst idea ever to add. The "modern" way of doing it makes it look corporate mass produced or just paid to be made. Clip art clearly was made by a actual average person just making a thing without involving paying someone off. And still cared enough to not just leave unformulated plain text. *google*. Clip art I expected was more like a pre cursors to emotes. In my life clip art was always something free from the web. Or included in software etc. I remember when T bagging was the new fortnight dance.

[@davespriter]

most of it doesnt look very y2k to me. it does look like the 2000s though

[@lego5745]

I’ve never associated clip art with the Y2K aesthetic at all. It’s definitely it’s own separate feel, but I do kind of understand where you’re coming from though :)

[@dillon1012]

r/y2kaesthetic ;)

[@smileywarhead5178]

Bring back magazines, and we'll get more clip art

[@matchanavi]

I feel like the next step for soulless art used by companies is going to be AI art. Creatives will remain adamant against it not being fine art, so it wouldn't exactly replace artists, but it could cause a problem if left unchecked.

[@bocahdongo7769]

Yep. You absolutely right Here in Indonesia corporate started to use AI for their ads

[@GENKI_INU]

Isn't the definition of fine art also about exploring things that might not be considered art? That's pretty much what several of my fine art uni instructors would say anyway.

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

It's 2024 now and it seems to me that companies using AI generated images for advertising/branding are seen as cheap and lacking substance / clarity

[@rickyrico80]

Just as clipart, the art of fonts is greatly under appreciated.

[@SimonBuchanNz]

There's no clipart movie though...

[@VonVikoGoat]

​@@SimonBuchanNz clipart movie idea: the protagonist finds out they're living inside a clipart collection

[@noranizaazmi6523]

@@VonVikoGoat alan becker:clip art edition

[@Gnidel]

I like Comic Sans.

[@BarelyNoticeable]

There’s something so intensely satisfying about creating a Power Point and inserting clip art, using the ✨Special Fonts✨ and then summing up with adding ~transitions~ like… I miss that magic

[@glitchyneopet6011]

i literally spent hours in powerpoint making little interactive _things_, it was just so much fun :)

[@bjornroesbeke]

Nothing screams more "year 2000" than Clipart, Wordart, and Comic Sans combined. It was everywhere!

[@Leofwine]

Oh man, Comic Sans. It is easier to read for dyslexic people, but it was so pervasive and overused in the 2000s, even in what I (back then) considered “serious topics”, like a letter from the church concerning one's confirmation.

[@rowandavis2061]

@@Leofwine The irritating thing is that today, it's still used unironically in many places you wouldn't expect to find it. One of my neighbours went through the trouble of getting a fancy slate house number for their front door only to inscribe the number in Comic Sans. It looks atrocious 😆

[@NewFalconerRecords]

@@rowandavis2061 Could be worse, they could have used Papyrus.

[@mardus_ee]

@@rowandavis2061 Maybe it was meant as a visual repellent for burglars :-)

[@dundee6402]

This, bright saturated colors and glittery animated gifs truly made web development in the early 00s 😂. I miss that era so much.

[@Yous0147]

Japanese clipart has taken its own form and actually become the defacto way of expressing formal messages visually, both in public and corporate contexts. The differences between the clipart we know and the japanese ones for starters is the cohesiveness, given that the japanese one is literally made by a single artist. I sometimes imagine how we would view clipart if we had 1 or a few standard styles that were inoffesive, cohesive and relatively simple, to the degree that they would be used broadly the same way the japanese ones are in their society.

[@laurabowles]

When you moved into the end section about the modern evolution of clip art, I thought you were going to talk about things like Canva, Creative Commons/Wikimedia, and plain ol' Google Images. For the amateur/home user, those seem to be the most natural successors. They're certainly the tools I use most in the same way I did clip art back in the day. Great video - really enjoyed.

[@davespriter]

i was thinking the same thing. and then there are a lot of alegria-like and 3d bitcoin toilet images in canva, so it felt weirdly implied but not namedropoed

[@ruan13o]

I think in the corporate world, apart from external and high profile presentations, the killer for clip art is just Google images. In those situations where no-one cares about copyright everyone finds the 'perfect' image on Google. The 'library' is more extensive than anything you can buy and it's 'free' and easy to use.

[@Ferrichrome]

yeah I immediately thought of Canva, never really put 2 and 2 together and realized that it's the modern version of clip art

[@melskunk]

I was expecting the rise of Google images as well, it's definitely what individuals moved to from clip art

[@sexygirlmax2019]

You really cant use google images like you would clip art, because these images are copyrighted and you cant use them for free.

[@GhostKitten69]

25:01 Back in middle school I once told a classmate that she didn't actually hate the color pink, she hated the way it was forced onto young girls. She reluctantly agreed. Personally I don't dislike the "corporate Memphis" style, I'm just tired of seeing it in ads everywhere all the time.

[@melody3741]

Okay, its REALLY cool that your sponsor is literally the direct descendant of those original clip books. I love that.

[@unrightist]

I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s when my grandma (in her late 70s-early 80s), in her senior co op with a computer room, would make clip-art based greeting cards in Corel paint (she worked in hospital admin when they started using computers so she had some familiarity). I always thought it was nice but of course being a kid who grew up with computers I didn't appreciate how unusual it was for her to have that level of technical skill...

[@FreyasArts]

As a teacher, I still love to use clip art since it's free to use and easily conveys the concepts I'm trying to teach 😊

[@jessvrabec7921]

I think a lot of people still use clip art .

[@cericat]

@@jessvrabec7921 Styles have changed but yes, I found it amusing the sponsor segment was for a company that basically fills the same niche of the old libraries we'd buy.

[@cursedalien]

I loved clip art, especially adding it to PowerPoints. Those PowerPoints also had the most extra slide transitions. Clip art really jazzed up my book reports in school.

[@Redrally]

Your final sentiment reminded me of an interview I read a while ago, of a man who developed a short documentary series providing an overview of British B Movies. He explained the "main features" were too polished or created far too removed from everyday reality, while the grittier, cheaper and more unlimited styles and stories told in B Movies were more reflective of the times and every day struggles of people. You can learn a lot from the lowest forms of art, it seems. And unlike high art, it's a more collective expression, so more voices are represented at once.

[@woodpigeon7776]

That’s cool.

[@FixItAgainToni]

Just like old Blues music or Boogie Woogie - considered the lowest level music at the time, it‘s also as authentic as you can get in the field of popular music.

[@caleb1413]

As a kid in the 2000s, Microsoft Word's clipart felt so cool. I'd sometimes just scroll through it just to see what was there. It hadn't occurred to me how long it's been since I've used that feature until this video. I didn't even realize it had been removed, though that isn't particularly surprising.

[@susansullivan3447]

This was practically the story of my career as a graphic designer & illustrator! I started in high school setting lead type with metal art cuts. For many years I worked for Volk Clip Art, Dynamic Graphics, Dover, and several other similar companies. I ran the first Quantel Paintbox that came to town. First image digitizer for any computer, pre-scanner, was a B&W surveillance camera. Most clip art contracts were "work for hire", and many talented illustrators just collected the checks, and didn't care about the rights, or credit. As long as most people can't draw or design original concepts, there will be a need for stock images. We're in the AI age of stock images. This was a fun & **VERY** nostalgic video.

[@msf1967]

Okay, so you're my hero. I've been trying to find the name of the clip art books I used back in the 80s. I worked as a paste-up artist for a mid-size newspaper doing display ads. On hand, there was a collection of huge-sized clip art books. They would come monthly or seasonly-I can't recall. It was Dynamic Graphics, Clipper. I've done all kinds of google searches trying to find the name of the company that put these out. Thank you!

[@teresaellis7062]

Back when Clip Art was the main form of art you could print at home, a friend of mine wrote a whole letter to me using clip art. It was adorable.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Love how the chronology emulates the "LoFi music to chill/study/relax to" Artwork, fitting the Popcultural symbols of each year.

[@Koopacake]

I remember making a bunch of choose your own adventure/ visual novel games in powerpoint with the graphics being made entirely out of clip art. Definitley gave me an appreciation for just how many drawing there were for almost anything you desired.

[@dyscotopia]

As far as broadcast graphics go, I don't think we should forget the Amiga. While it only has 8-bit color, that was much more than the Mac and it was cheaper. Attach a genlock and you had all you needed to run your own colorful public access tv channel

[@susansullivan3447]

Not just broadcast graphics. I did print work and illustrations on my Amiga 2000, in color, and on a larger screen than a mac at that time. ProDraw was a much better program than Adobe Illustrator back then. I may have the distinction of having the only printed Dover clip art book that was actually done on an Amiga ;-)

[@beefy256]

Fantastic audio quality and editing/graphics. Amazing production quality, a fascinating topic, and incredible research! You're basically just hitting a home run here man.

[@Foervraengd]

I watched this a day after a frustrating time at work where I struggled to find good stock photography because it has all become oversaturated with ai images now. It's interesting how we tend to value small everyday things like clip art only after it's gone.

[@johndawson9689]

It's a lot to do with the difference in experiencing the passage of time vs the passage of eras. You never feel and era's ending except retroactively. Noticing the disappearance that got past our attention rather than what we watch happen or the appearance of new things.

[@DrDingsGaster]

Man, I'm 30 and some of that clipart really popped the nostalgia feel for me xD The corporate style of today isn't inherently bad, there's just a lot of cheap and terrible examples of it being used. Facebook's rendition looks good, it's got strange proportions but it all fits with the rest of the style and is carried throughout the art. It's more a stylistic, simplistic choice that does its job well. Others that have utilized it don't always keep the style perfect to each item they're working on and it looks technically bad. It's like if you had a movie with a lot of animators but they couldn't replicate whatever was being animated and injected too much of their own style into it.

[@WizardOfDocs]

and, of course, the trash is the best place to do archaeology. I don't think I have a single most memorable piece of clip-art, but the style of the owl reading a book really hits my nostalgia buttons.

[@the-NightStar]

The measure of every human society comes from everything that people fight to possess and then grow tired of and discard. There is no purer time capsule than the every day things that people no longer want, did want at some point, and put effort into getting rid of, now.

[@thesushifiend]

In 1991 as a 16-year-old I had a week’s work experience at Quantel in Newbury, UK as I was heavily into Deluxe Paint on the Amiga and my Electronics Teacher had been an ex-BBC tech and had contacts there. The technology was light years ahead of anything I’d seen before and it was also the first time I’d seen high definition 24-bit colour and the paintbox was so responsive. Nearly everything happened in real time. I felt like I’d died and visited computer graphics heaven. It was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life and I remember it like it was yesterday. Thanks Mr. Lomas (RIP) for setting it up!

[@JacobGeller]

Another stone cold banger. Love the lo-fi chapter markers

[@LinusBoman]

Kai (www.youtube.com/@the.spin.doctor) did a great job on those chapter animations! The Mr Tibbles story arc was his brainchild 🐈

[@evan]

As a child of the 90’s I had to take courses in elementary school on how to make power points and HAD to use clip art to show emotion. I was so excited once you got to the PowerPoint section as that was my main introduction to clip art and it’s use.

[@evan]

Also the editing on this is top notch

[@LinusBoman]

Thanks mate!

[@helsbellsninja]

This was such a powerful nostalgia trip, taking me back to the 90s, making school posters with Jokerman and messing around on the pre-installed graphic design apps, through to present day, being a teacher and decorating my own lesson slides and handouts with stock images and imgur memes. Thank you so much.

[@TheWolfeDen]

I never would have requested a 30 minute video on Clipart but boy am I glad that you've made one

[@ChrisWEarly]

I don’t use Snapchat but there must be an argument that social media has absolutely taken the baton of Clip Art and rocketed it into space. It’s taken the commercial use of the arts into a language that a large portion of the (young) world uses in its day to day. Thoughts?

[@Moocow2003]

I see what you mean... Bitmoji are perhaps a modern take on clip art. There's one for every situation

[@itsirkeel]

So grateful that my search got me here! I'm a Gen-Xer and your observations on nostalgia around clip art is spot on for me. Loved going on this deep dive with you! Off to see what else you cover!

[@gabrieltobia]

Looking at turn-of-the-millenium clip art now that it's been removed from its corporate surroundings, it all has quite a lovely charm. I can imagine the Museum of Modern Art hosting an exhibition dedicated to them.

[@MaximillianRobesphere]

Oooh, and have like posters dedicated to all of them!

[@rofflcopterr]

Thank you so much for putting this all together. In addition to being an incredibly powerful piece of educational history, the aesthetics of this video were equally gorgeous. Bravo, this is truly a great watch. Another note: It appears that the "Global Village Coffeehouse" design aesthetic may have been directly inspired by that first scratch art-to-scanner methodology.

[@TG1_618]

I've worked as a dubbing mixer for a few years, and your narration is beautifully recorded, edited and mixed. Love it. It helps that the delivery is solid. Well projected, not rushed, well annunciated without being overdone. Keep up the good work!

[@bwuppy]

Linus, the quality of the content and execution in your videos is unmatched - you’re a gifted communicator and it’s a joy to keep diving into design history, retrospectives, and hot takes together. And on a more personal level, I always find your videos a soothing place to return to when I have an anxious or unhappy mind. Just super appreciative of your work ☺️

[@trwijbenga]

Yeah hearing him talk is somehow very comforting 😊

[@branlory]

What a beautifully made video, Linus, who knew you'd make me interested in the evolution of clipart. I love how you managed to capture the nostalgia of ClipArt while also providing an accurate and comprehensive history of it. The archival material and case studies you used were on point. The narrative was also extremely well-crafted and your research was top-notch! loved the overall aesthetic of the video, with the lofi hiphop vibe animations (blending in ClipArt and your face).

[@_supersolar]

This is your best video yet! Loved the section about the 'death' and post-clipart worlds. slick presentation, socially aware perspective, and memorable humor

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

I saw clipart at work the other day. On a laminated letterpaper sign, saying "DO NOT ENTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in huge red Calibri letters, with 2 judgmental yellow emoji-like clipart characters wagging their fingers at you with furled brows. Also the whole thing was stretched out horizontally because the aspect ratio was originally more square, and the whole thing was pixelated because the original resolution wasn't very high. At first I died on the inside at how shockingly bad it was, but then I was laughing about it for the rest of the day because I imagined the possibility someone did that on purpose. It's so bad that it became incredibly funny and ironic.

[@phoenixwa_2419]

The death of clip art makes me sad to think about. My childhood memories of playing with funny little illustrations were reignited watching this. Great video. Thank you.

[@bunniifangz]

that’s funny to me since when I was in elementary in the 2000s and early 2010s I always saw clip art as lazy and unartistic and generic

[@timothydigiuseppe1753]

Layperson here (not an IT enthusiast). A well-written and presented narrative with historical aspects that were unknown to me. Thank you.

[@allluckyseven]

I think the Alegria/Memphis style looks actually kind of neat, despite being ubiquitous (popularity doesn't make anything bad, even though it can be obnoxious to some people). But what caught my eye at the time that it came to prominence was how similar it was to an illustration style popular in the 70s, that we've seen in movies such as Beatles' Yellow Submarine and also in Sesame Street.

[@wigwagstudios2474]

big sesame street fan here and i cannot see the similarity between alegremphis and early era SS animated sketches,,, i think honestly memphria is its own thing, the closest thing it's really similar to in historical examples honestly has to be some pretty old fancy-schmancy minimalist art from the 1920s and 30s, like a WPA poster or something

[@allluckyseven]

@@wigwagstudios2474 The proportions are there. I'm not sure if Sesame Street now that you're saying that, but surely my story and educational books had drawings like those. Not as simplified, of course, and using more than just flat shapes.

[@Nessinby]

The style makes me think of SIAMÉS' Music Video's, such as The Wolf or Mister Fear, which are beautiful and have such great motions. That's something Memphis has a lot of, motion, and it's something very core to the style I feel Linus didn't touch on a lot.

[@bxyify]

I grew up in east block and to me it resembles the "socialist realism" technocrat art style.

[@katvelyte]

the proportions are similar to the yellow submarine, but the vibes are definitely different.

[@brianh9358]

I did a lot of my graphic design training in the early 80s. One thing that was very common in use at the time was Letraset rub on fonts and graphics. The fonts that Letraset created were all available in rub on sheet format - so if you were going to do a design layout it almost always included some rub on elements. What I find interesting is that people still sell them as "vintage" items on Etsy.

[@katk7925]

And you always had to run out just before the shop closed to buy one more sheet.. for one letter

[@techdistractions]

I recently re-kindled my love for clipart after 25+ years for a retro game project because I was looking for simple vector style graphics that used only a few colours. I have learned a lot about how "less can be more" but also learned a lot about the frustrating limitations that can arise with such a concept. As a kid we used clipart for everything and it gave a personal or "hand made" style feel to a document or even an application (ie. the set that came with Visual Basic). For me it died out when the web 2.0 became a thing, suddenly those simple vector graphics (or banners!) became out dated and looked almost silly when compared to modern documents, websites or applications.

[@tyrannicpuppy]

This was an excellent and informative video. I honestly had no idea clip art even predated Office. Never felt the need to look into it at all, so it hadn't even occurred to me. Always nice to learn something new. Well presented too.

[@lampdevil]

Ohhh that Art Parts stuff took me RIGHT back to the 90s, for real. I hadn't even realized that WAS clip art! It's such a distinct style, and it hadn't occurred to me how perfectly suited it was to the technology of the day, too. Great video over all, and thank you for this little revelation!

[@windowdwellers9939]

Watched this video with my dad who worked as an illustrator at the des moines register late 80s til 2010s and did a ton of freelance work at dynamic graphics during that time. It was so brilliant to see you cover how his work flow changed with the changing technology. Such an impressive job well done. Took him a trip through memory lane 😚

[@ternilapilli]

Another great video... more of an nostalgic emotional rollercoaster than I expected. Also your subtle story arc/tribute to Mr Tibbles was very nicely done.

[@silverhare6537]

I legit stopped the video and let out a small sight, i felt a bit sad ngl

[@PaulSwansonIdAu]

Don't know why KZbin keeps pushing this guy's videos in my feed... but I was able to screenshot loads of great clip art, so that's cool.

[@3960417]

I'm not a fan of Coldplay. But the Parachutes album in the dumpster tears my preteen heart a little.

[@ElijahCiali]

5:20 Love the hidden Jankman sticker! Always a sucker for designer lore

[@SocieteRoyale]

this is a fascinating documentary on a very under looked part of everyday mundanity, to be honest I had not noticed clip art had gone away until the other day at a college course I noticed someone had included a confused clip art man in a powerpoint which made me realise I hadn't seen it for years. The corporate memphis style people I feel have a genus in early 2000s subscription magazines, one in particular being from a teaching union I remember my parents always got monthly, that had a very similar style of art work in it

[@christina4941]

love the lofi animations, so beautiful

[@RyanBauer]

As always, a brilliant deep dive! I started my design career in the mid-'90s in the newspaper world. Floppies and Zip Disks of sub-par clipart everywhere! What a time to be alive!

[@internetshaquille]

onlineceramics clip art is the highest tier of art

[@sonukhare23]

This is such a beautifully constructed video. The flow of the information is so seamless and easy to understand and at no point does it make me loose my attention. I throughly enjoyed all 28 minutes of it.

[@JKenjiLopezAlt]

Another great video. Thanks. I found the particular ad in this video kind of ironic 😂

[@VictoriaKimball]

I ran a magazine in the late '80s/early '90s and, although we had just transitioned to desktop publishing (Ventura Publisher on a PC 286 running MS-DOS, and reluctantly switched to Windows 3 when we added CorelDRAW! to our tools), we kept our subscription to physical clipart books for a long time. I nostalgically recognize a lot of the image styles that you shared in this entertaining and informative video. However, what I really want to comment on is the fact that you included a video clip of Klaymen from The Neverhood, my all-time favorite video game! Thank you for that!

[@raerats]

I genuinely hate Alegria/Memphis. Its not just about being corporate, there's a lot of stuff I love that's unfortunately very corporate, its the proportions. There's something really unsettling/creepy about a lot of the proportions on the human figures, with almost nonexistant heads/faces and giant arms/hands and legs, they look uncanny, especially in motion. I know some older clipart had that too but I always got the feeling it was supposed to be a little weird/offputting with its sketchy black and white style, but the alegria seems poisonously cheerful and it makes it freakier.

[@amicaaranearum]

This. I really don’t care about the commercial association; the unnatural proportions and “inflatable tube man” limbs are ugly.

[@DaNintendude]

I absolutely agree. I despise the style. It feels inhuman, and not in a fun way. There are certain corporate artstyles that use similar flat colors and minimalist ideas, but those ones don't make me genuinely angry to look at. I can watch a Fred Meyer ad and feel fine. Because despite the other annoying aspects of the advertising, the character designs actually feel appealing to me. I do not feel that with Facebook, Google, or Apple. All of those styles blend together into those hideous small headed, large limbed figures.

[@videowifie]

excellent video. I paused it about a million times to read the old ad pages. great work, looking forward to going through the rest of this channel now :)

[@fsfs555]

Ah, Clip Art. I'd guess 90% of my non-essay school projects were done either in Publisher or PowerPoint and were filled with the stuff. The pervasiveness of free-to-use (or rather, bundled with a particular product) art files probably contributed to modern users just taking whatever images they want for their projects without thinking about copyright and such. It wasn't an issue before, now suddenly it is.

[@glitchyneopet6011]

oh yeah remember when like every other program in the office suite got the ribbon except for publisher? 😭 really though i do miss messing with those silly illustrations with wacky lineart 'n' stuff, it was just more fun in those days

[@Fidel_Villeneuve]

Thanks for another interesting watch! Thanks for including the Ron and Joe clipart, I'd never seen it before.

[@mpag6195]

One of my first jobs was converting raster images to vector drawings for a company that made coins and medals for corporate events. I would have about 15 minutes to convert a simple logo into perfect vector graphics using Coreldraw this was then sent to the tooling room where it was made into dies to stamp the coins.

[@alexpotts6520]

The KZbin algorithm has blessed me here. I'd never really thought at all about where Clipart came from, or given it much attention at all. It takes real talent to make the story of something so outwardly mundane so compelling.

[@SnapshotOfASoul]

The cat urn made me tear up a little, it was nice to see that continuity but it reminded me a lot of my recent loss. Having such a loving tribute to a cat in a video about ClipArt was beautiful

[@ac1646]

Oh I didn't notice it. Sorry for your loss. How touching.

[@jyf.7551]

This is my new favourite channel! So glad to have stumbled upon your videos

[@paulz.6162]

I think what puts people off with corporate memphis art style is that it creates the illusion of happiness and good intentions which is in stark contrast with what the big tech corporations are associated with. Also the weird proportions and skin colours make it uncanny, not quite human. E: lol, you basically said that (wrote the comment before) :D

[@the-NightStar]

For me, my hatred of the corporate memphis style just comes down to it accentuating what I find to be both ugly, unappealing and bland about human beings in general. It takes that homogenized style of "ugly humans" today and just kicks it into overdrive. Kind of like every time I see these weird drawings of ugly people on tumblr with discolored, triangle noses. It just all comes off as very "punchable" in a very hipstery kind of way.

[@Financiallyfreeauthor]

Yeah it’s the uncanny part that I don’t like. It doesn’t feel friendly, it feels creepy

[@beekah992]

To me the art style feels pretentious when it has no right to be lol

[@ashsutton6478]

Your voice is absolutely the one I was looking for to fall asleep to while watching informational videos about clip art

[@roboppy]

AWESOME VIDEO AS ALWAYS, LINUS. Your video has made me feel guilty for not noticing that clip art was gone-ish, despite being something that I must've used all the time as a kid in the '90s. So many Powerpoints. Thank you for the trip down memory lane and your five million hours of research. Also, unintentional effect of watching your video is that I now cannot stop thinking about "The Neverhood" (I was totally obsessed with that game as a kid).

[@ternilapilli]

Same reaction here... the sudden realisation that clip art just went... and went a long time ago... and I didn't notice.

[@LifeofBrad1]

Yeah. I didn't notice until pretty recently either. I suddenly started getting memories of framed food and drink clipart images on the walls of local cafes when I was a kid. Last time I remember using clipart was in 2013 when I was in college. Crazy to think a year later it would be gone and I was none the wiser.

[@gooball2005]

Great video! I like these longer form ones, it seems like you really did the topic justice. What I especially enjoyed was your comparisons of clipart to the styles that preceded and followed it, all with similar functions but remarkably unique visual approaches.

[@RoboLamp]

I'm so glad that you mentioned corporate memphis and how it could be our associations with the style that degrades it rather than the visuals themselves. Whenever I ask somebody critiquing it to pinpoint what's so heinous about it, it always comes back to what it evokes. It looks decent. Good shape design and interestingly sized proportions. It does what it sets out to. 6/10 I feel like its reputation is just the 'sellout' feeling rebranded as 'becoming corporate'.

[@whizzerZero]

it's like… it's design rather than art. it does a pretty good job of doing what it sets out to do. but what it sets out to do is… questionable.

[@jbird4478]

The style itself reflects those associations. It's overly simplistic, generic and soulless; lacking any individuality in the characters themselves. They are all oddly proportioned and weirdly colored in exactly the same way. In a way it achieves the exact opposite of what was intended. It doesn't portray a "diverse" world, but a world where all humans are the same hollow blobs, despite superficial differences like a random "color". So, I disagree. The style itself evokes those associations.

[@Xorrak]

humans that look like mishapen abominations is not a good design

[@RoboLamp]

@@Xorrak Ever seen a fucking wc... anywhere? Y'know, those gendered humans on the toilet doors are classic in design and they're just 2d, monochrome stick figures, sometimes with a triangle to represent a skirt. You can dislike the Memphis style, that's fine. Again, I don't like this design, but I don't get the hate, either. There's two other comments responding to me critiquing it that actually gave me food for thought, but your labelling of abstracting as "abominable" is moot. I bet you don't mind those designs on wc walls, though. You don't know why you *actually* don't like the Memphis style. I don't care about your feelings regarding how it looks. Raise a design point instead of just your personal tastes or let the adults talk.

[@volvo09]

I didn't even know the name of this style, but it came to mind when I first watched this video.... I said clip art hasn't gone anywhere, it's just been replaced with that bland blobby super inoffensive trash you see from every mega corporation.

[@furiousfilipino5648]

Saved a lot over the years on floppy disk and CD-ROM.

[@mustachewalrus]

Absolutely brilliant, love it. I learned so much about my field I feel dumb admitting it. Good art is always not in vogue with the corporations. You’ve given me a lot to re-assess.

[@saltiestbun]

the irony of listening to this while animating pixels for work as you mentioned pixel art being time consuming (9:30) - it made me feel very seen and understood lol. I'm not done watching the video yet, but loving it so far - keep up the great work~!

[@victoriab8186]

I was surprised where you started as the earliest form of clip-art. I mean, yes in terms of the cutting out, but all I could think was stock print-blocks for printing presses, like manicules and edging decoration, which was re-used and re-used. I looked at a collection of old printing presses recently, and it was really interesting the number of full-on stock illustrations there were for things like newspaper publishing. They had a whole collection of different local company logos for advertising as well

[@ABoyNamedCharlotte]

i'm so happy i discovered your channel. i find clip art and graphic design fascinating, and here are tons of videos on the subject!

[@gammaboost]

Now I'd like to figure out how to get clip art back into modern versions of office. Great video!

[@DerMBen]

You'll probably just have to copy and paste

[@xxplosiv88]

Fantastic video mate. I was wracking my brain thinking of the clip art collection my parents bought when I was a kid, then boom at 15:51 up it pops - the IMSI Masterclips 35,000 Premium Art Collection! It came in a big box with a huge printed catalogue book, but exactly like you said all the files were in some weird file format so couldn't really use them! Thanks for the nostalgia, you got a new sub :)

[@mgthestrange9098]

I worked in an office and we produced a little 12 page or so newsletter, which I designed on Publisher and illustrated it with mostly clip art. I loved doing it and would leave it as a ‘treat’ when the more serious jobs were done, it was fun playing with the little pictures and finding the right one. It made me feel like a kid again and didn’t like people meddling with it! I suppose emojis fill a similar niche now. 📰😊

[@PeafrogSims]

21:05 That owl really brought me back to my school library 🥲😅

[@ww21943]

I still use clip art every chance I get! It amuses me to think of what peoples reactions will be to my posters, emails, etc.

[@sentientarugula2884]

What fonts do you use in this video? They're so clean and nice (the title font even looks like those old magazine ads for Apple Macintoshes).

[@herculesrockefeller8969]

Thanks for an interesting history of clip art. The Memphis style probably got its name from the Memphis style of furniture produced in the '80s by the Italian Memphis group, who made furniture with outrageous shapes and colors.

[@thihal123]

Linus, I really appreciate the retelling of this history. I grew up in this period and recall how awesome the Mac was for publishing and graphics. I’ve sort of forgotten this history into being reminded of it. It’s wonderful. Amazing where we’ve come from since the 70s!

[@hcolider2817]

"If big tech had adopted a different style, would it have provoked the same vitriol?" People hate the memphis style because it strips the elements of defining qualities that make us unique, and beautiful. By orienting their style around being as inoffensive as possible, they remove all that makes it unique, and thus beautiful. It is bad for the same exact reasons the collections are recognized as bad: it is cheap, mass produced garbage. There is little redeemable about it. If they really had replaced the art with even something detailed and expressive like 'anime,' it's doubtless that people would have taken a much less harsh stance against it, for those reasons alone

[@Thesupremeone34]

You reminded me of the anime style taco bell ads during the Tokyo Olympics (the ones with gawr gura in them) that were interesting and had so much style to them. Probably a hundred artists worked on an ad to sell tacos... And then the GrubHub ad that everyone absolutely hates was that same year

[@boomr334]

As a kid in the 80s, this is awesome to watch. Great documentary. I recall as a 9 year old making 'scratch art' on lino. Burning images using a magnifying glass. When that Apple came out, I was completely blown away. And then gave up graphics for the next 30 years until now that I am retired and need to do something that isn't golf.

[@MrBenMcLean]

Mid century hand drawn commercial art was beautiful and did nothing wrong.