[jjarvis]

This aesthetic will pass one day.

I think that the current minimal aesthetic really started in the early 00's with Apple's iPod. That design was striking at the time and was the antithesis to 90's grunge aesthetic. I was also a big fan of minimal techno back then and I almost felt like Apple was making nods to that lifestyle. We were certainly using their computers to produce it!

Now minimalism is old hat. I suspect that Gen Z will make some minor statements against it. But the big disruption won't come for another generation.

I recently read Generations by Neil Howe and William Strauss. In the book they make the case that their are 4 archetypes to a generation cycle - Idealist (boomer), Reactive (gen x), Civic (millennial) and Adaptive (gen z). Idealists and Civics are the dominant generations. While Reactive and Adaptive are the less so (one reacts against and the other codifies).

We will soon repeat the cycle sometime in the 2030's. The generation following gen z will be an idealist generation and will disrupt the current "blanding" trends we are living with. Think about the last time this happened. In the 1950s the silent generation (the last cycle's adaptive generation) was coming of age in an extremely conformist era created by the GI Generation (civics). Then the boomers came to age and the 1960s happened.

[kelseyfrog]

It depends on what is specifically meant by current minimal aesthetic. At least in architecture, minimalist modernism we can clearly point to Aldof Loo's Ornement and Crime(1908)[1]. It includes gems such as

> The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornamentation from utilitarian objects.

> Ornament does not heighten my joy in life or the joy in life of any cultivated person.

and

> Freedom from ornament is a sign of spiritual strength.

There was not a history of minimal aesthetic before this era.

I'm not sure how this fits into any generational cycle. I'm not too keen on generational reductionism.

1. https://idoc.pub/documents/adolf-loos-ornament-and-crimepdf-...

[1123581321]

Interesting theory. I’ve read speculation that we may get an austere, conservative (perhaps pious) generation this century, based on cases of declining empire like Rome and Sweden. There are counter-examples as well.

[anthk]

> think that the current minimal aesthetic really started in the early 00's with Apple's iPod. That design was striking at the time and was the antithesis to 90's grunge aesthetic.

Unix users had flat designs on Fluxbox/Blackbox and lot of themes.

http://tenr.de/styles/

On the rest of the platforms, I remind you System6 and 7 on Apple were minimal and flat.