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Surface & texture · Simulated material

Gloss & highlights

Specular highlights, wet plastic, bubbles.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under surface & texture: what is the material finish?

styles make it: 37
as a defining choice: 4
as a usual one: 16
now and then: 17
avoid it: 125

Styles defined by it 4

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Streamline Moderne1930–1945 · North AmericaThe late, chiefly American phase of Art Deco, in which aerodynamic science became a visual language for a Depression-era culture hungry for progress.
Y2K Futurism1997–2005 · Global / networkedThe optimistic, chrome-plated vision of the future that surrounded the turn of the millennium, spread by consumer electronics, music videos, games, fashion and dot-com branding.
Frutiger Aero2004–2013 · Global / networkedThe glossy, optimistic look of consumer technology from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, retrospectively named in 2017 by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute after Windows Vista's Aero interface and Adrian Frutiger's humanist sans.
Generative-AI Image Aesthetic2022–present · Global / networkedThe house look of pictures synthesised by text-to-image diffusion models since 2022.

Styles that often use it 16

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 17

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Gradientsin 30 of 37
Illusion of depthin 24 of 37
Chrome & 3D renderin 15 of 37
Cosmic & celestialin 19 of 37
3D renderin 15 of 37
Fluorescent & neonin 15 of 37

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in surface & texture