When you try to break the existing language without talent or purpose, you end up with images that don't convey any information... which is a recurrent problem in modern covers.
Absolutely right. What was once a new and thoughtful conceptual approach has become the unconsidered default, as tends to happen. A truly conceptual approach hinges on purpose.
By the way, conceptual design doesn't really work anymore.
If I understand what you're saying correctly, I agree when it comes to a certain approach to conceptual art, (not all conceptual art aims to upend or hijack convention,) and in general that definitely applies to the inevitable life cycle of anything transgressive. Eventually what was once rule breaking becomes a new traditionalism and no longer has its original meaning. In some cases though I'd posit that the neo-traditionalism of post-Duchampian conceptual work is being celebrated, for instance in Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian', (the banana taped to the wall), as opposed to working under the delusion that it's actually transgressing anything. This sort of work is an established contemporary genre now, and at least some artists working in that mode and their collectors are aware of that and it figures into their reading.
In this case by conceptual design though I just mean to subtly distinguish using a graphic design approach that starts tabula rasa from the source material and works its way out to arrive at hopefully inventive solutions, as opposed to starting from somewhere outside the work (genre, audience, marketing, analytics, brand identity/goals, anything automatic or default qualifies) and moving in.
Budgets are definitely a huge factor in modern design trends. In terms of the critique in the IPoS vid it might easily be the biggest factor causing novel design to trend towards this particular aesthetic and sameness. The same goes for today's "hollywood" movies, while many tend to fault creators, (not that they're never to blame,) the reasons for many of their disappointing trends are subsumed into the crushing machinations of global economic engines.
I'd never heard of Garces before. Very very cool, going to check his work out for sure, thanks for sharing!
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