We've all seen our fair share of grunge design. You know, the designs that look like they've been beat up and battered, ripped apart then taped back together. I just want to know, WHEN WILL IT DIE?! I get it, it's cool, it's edgy, I've done a couple designs in it, but grunge design has been in style since I started design school, isn't it time for it to leave us, as grunge fashion did 30 years ago? I'm not talking about the little splash of a grunge brush, or grungey-looking swirls or flowers, I'm talking about taking a perfectly good design, putting a grunge vector on it, making it a selection and cutting the crap out of the design. I feel like this type of design is as beaten down as it looks. Though, as long as consumers continue responding to such designs and clients continue to ask for them, the style will live on, and I, along with all other graphic designers that aim to please, will be guilty of carrying it.
Grunge can't die because it's an oppositional style. As long as some things look slick/new/polished/artificial, somethings will need to look organic/rough/decaying/handmade. In other words, the more disconnected we are from nature the more we seek out things that remind us of nature. Grunge reminds us of nature.
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