Stylogenyin the style of Frutiger Aero

Digital native · 2004–2013 · Global / networked

Frutiger Aero

Also known as Aero, Aero glass, Web 2.0 gloss

The 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. Translucent glass panels, glossy orbs and buttons, water droplets, bubbles, auroras, green fields and blue skies fused technology with clean nature, set in airy humanist sans-serifs.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices, until its AI image is made.

01

How it works

  • Layer translucent, frosted-glass panels with soft reflections over luminous blue and green backgrounds.
  • Give buttons and icons a glossy upper highlight and a rounded, bubble-like volume.
  • Pair technology with idealised nature: water, droplets, bubbles, fish, macro grass, auroras and clear skies.
  • Set interface text in clean humanist sans-serifs such as Frutiger, Segoe UI or Myriad, light and airy.
  • Use bokeh, lens flares, soft gradients and swooshes to suggest light and motion.

Windows Vista and 7, Mac OS X, Nintendo and global consumer-tech advertising; named by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (2017)

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Flat, Grain & noise, Photocopy & distress, Earth & mineral, Condensed display, Horror vacui, Rebellious & subversive

Palette

  • #4fb3e8
  • #22c3c9
  • #6cc04a
  • #f5fbff
  • #0b5fa5
  • #b8e04a

Typefaces

  • Frutiger

    Adrian Frutiger, 1976

  • Segoe UI

    Microsoft

  • Myriad

    Apple corporate typeface, 2002–2015

Known for

  • Microsoft Windows Vista Aero (2007) and Windows 7

    2009

  • Windows Live Messenger

  • Nintendo Wii system menu

    2006

  • Apple Mac OS X Aqua and iTunes

  • Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute

    named the aesthetic, 2017

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Frutiger Aero’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleFrutiger Aero2004–2013 · Global / networked

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute, ‘Frutiger Aero’ (cari.institute/aesthetics/frutiger-aero)
  2. Microsoft, Windows Vista User Experience Interaction Guidelines (Aero)

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.