Web 2.0 is no longer just a buzz word (though it is certainly that as well) – it has become the official term used to describe a different way of approaching the creation of websites that expands the roll of the user and favors dynamic interaction and application functionality over the static click-and-read model of yesteryear (bla bla bla…). And of course, along with heightened functionality and AJAX everything, comes a new aesthetic to visually communicate to the user that he or she has arrived at a Web 2.0 site. The only catch is, it’s not a new look at all…we have seen this before.

I’ve compiled the diagram below for your amusement, so click to see the whole thing expanded, and have a laugh:

The rounded bubbly letters, the fun, icon-rich, bright colored logos and designs of today are a shameless throwback to childhood and the kid-targeted marketing of the 1980’s. The visual syntax of Web 2.0 makes a point to remind us of a different time in our lives when the market was booming with new bright shiney toys and sugary cereal and snacks that would make our mouths pop and our teeth rot.

As the later half of “Gen-x” and the 2nd generation of Baby Boomers reach consumer maturity (many of us have gotten out of school, are making some money of our own and have a tendency to hang out on our ‘puters rather than veg infront of the tv), I think it’s become apparent that the the 18 – 35 yo demographic is a superior market to target. And Web 2.0 branding is all about referencing toy and cereal marketing. It’s the perfect approach, as web 2.0 application sites are the uncanny equivalent of Saturday Morning Cartoons.

From Lego to Google, it’s all connected….

Rather than writing a long essay about the cultural implications about what this means for web 2.0, here are a few examples I find particularly amusing:

Yelp and LEGO – Their design team must play with Legos on their lunch break b/c there is no way this is a coincidence…..

C’mon, who didn’t see the corrolation between blogging and playing frogger?

In my oppinion, the ROLLYO Logo is just as likely to give you a cavity as these sugary snacks…the graphic even looks like one.

And here’s the cincher: this one will make all you web designers and developers kill yourselves laughing. My partner and I were in stitches when I made this corrolation:

…well, maybe this kills my chances of writing for Vitamin, but it was worth it. Actually, they’d probably think it’s funny. We did.

There are hundreds more….more than one person could possibly catalogue. But the question one has to ask is whether these designs are the product of designers who came out of the 1980’s carrying memories of Hanna Barbara and Atari video games, Pop Rocks bursting in mouth and a love of the Fruit Loops parrot, or are we intentionally marketing to the kids at the tail end of the 2nd Generation Baby Boom now, with hopes that these brands will stick for later the way cartoonage and video games have stuck with us like a Lisa Frank sticker on a Debbie Gibson binder? I think there are merits to theories, and I would hesitate to knock a method that makes me remember theme songs decades later. Obviously they did something right…

The 1980s were lucrative for those targeting kids, and hopefully this is an omen that web 2.0 as a market trend has more staying power than the 1.0 boom of the late nineties. I was lucky enough to have missed the economic fall of the Web 1.0 market (I was still in undergrad eating Ramen Noodles at 10 cents a pack and going to campus art openings for the free hors d’vours), but I, like a lot of sophmores in the industry, certainly have put stock – both figurative and literal – into this round, and I definitely don’t want to hear Game Over anytime soon.

Ultimately, I have confidence that current branding trends will stick, as they afford a large demographic the nostalgia of childhood in the 80s, and for the younger tykes, a fresh and upbeat milieu in which to seek entertainment and hang out.

Posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 5:11 pm Follow responses via the RSS 2.0 feed.