it’s poor form to air your petty grievances with someone when it comes out they did something actually bad. save that for companies, like when you learn duolingo removed kanji from its beginner’s japanese courses as part of their collab with crunchy roll
duolingo is shit for japanese imo*, here are some apps i reccommend:
Hey Japan - comes with a cute shiba inu bc fuck that aggressive owl. its basically duolingo made specifically for japanese and much better at teaching you HOW the language works.
Kanji Study - its the grey one, made by one person. it covers the first 80 kanji plus the main radicals that make kanji up, PLUS hiragana and katakana FOR FREE. you can practice by drawing, flash cards, multiple choice, and you can decide whether you read or select the romanji/character/meaning. i learned hiragana in 5 days using this. the upgraded version (one time payment) with higher level kanji goes on sale a few times a year, consider supporting the app if you find it useful
Todai - more advanced but good for reading comprehension. japanese news in… japanese. highlights which JLPT level words are and gives percentages of each level for each article. has inbuilt dictionary to check words you dont know.
Takoboto - my preferred japanese dictionary but there are loads out there. i like it bc i can search in english, romanji, kana, or kanji and it breaks down kanji compounds into individual characters. it also shows different conjugations eg: to eat, eating, ate, to be able to eat, etc
those are just the phone apps i use, there are so many other resources out there that are free and not pulling bullshit like skipping one of the 3 ‘alphabets’ of a language
*to be clear the reason i think duolingo is shit for japanese is that it doesnt follow the JLPT pathway. which… you dont NEED exactly, but i think the country that had to make a new, easier language profiency test bc not enough people were passing the existing one will know how to build courses that teach their language. plus duolingo is doing *gestures* whatever shit that is up top.
if you seriously want to learn japanese, memorise your kana (drop romanji asap or youll forever struggle and I’ll come to kick your shins) and find the ebook of genki 1 that someone uploaded, or some other JLPT N5 course. but NOT duolingo.
Edit: just realised that duolingo may be your only real option if your first language isnt english (too easy for me to forget, sorry). in that case, make sure you supplement duolingo with your own kanji study!!!
If you weren’t here for part one, lemme sum it up real fast:
Okay, all up to speed? We’re being served 80s throwback stuff with the serial numbers scratched off, re-labeled as yo totally 90s. What we’ve got now isn’t completely wrong, but I’m telling you, there’s so much gold left unmined.
As we saw in part one with Memphis Milano, these things get messy. Trends don’t start and end neatly every ten years. The first wave of 90s throwback attempts focused on the early part of the decade, and nobody since really pushed to represent the other seven years. Well, if you really wanna do something, I guess you gotta do it yourself.
I have suggestions. Get your flannel ready, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
Analog Grunge
SURRRRRRRGE or uh, Grunge, is probably the look that defines the decade best. The big kickoff point here is Nirvana - after a shiny pop-dominated music scene in the 80s, Nevermind was like a breath of fresh smog.
Your design has to look like it survived a nuclear blast, then was run over by your parents’ Buick a couple of times.
Rust. Dirt. Scuffs and scrapes. Signs of distress.
Handwritten or scribbled illustrations.
Low-rent aesthetics. Torn paper shapes, label maker or typewriter fonts.
If there’s a Comic Sans for the 90s, it’s “distressed typewriter font.” Seriously, it’s mandatory. When I pulled images for this post I could not escape typewriter fonts. I don’t think you couldn’t call yourself a respectable designer without it. Just look at how much mileage old-timey typewriters and label makers got:
Hell, it’s the giant X in The X Files!
I think another component to Grunge is sort of an anti-digital, pro-analog message. My pet theory is home computers went from being a semi-common novelty in 1990 to an essential gotta-have-it purchase in every American home by ‘99. Desktop publishing apps made it almost too easy to make pixel-perfect, clean, uniform designs. Digital photography and scanners meant you could now publish full color photographs with ease.
But digital perfection is the enemy of Grunge. Analog means authenticity.
So you had a whole gaggle of designers running in the other direction. Sure you could use a computer, but your work absolutely had to look like it didn’t come from one. As much as possible, incorporate hand-drawn artwork, scribbles, dust and splotches. Write text with chicken scratch if you have to. As much as you could make your multimillion dollar ad campaign look like it came from the margins of some high schoolers’ math homework, the better.
Factory Pomo
Not everyone was running away from digital, though. Many designers were embracing computer apps - and I think that’s where Factory Pomo first came into being. Coined by designer Froyo Tam (that’s their logo up above!) Factory Pomo is one of those things that once you see an example, you can’t stop seeing it.
Strong, basic geometric primitives with inverted, contrasting colors
Tall typography
Art Deco style rivets and spikes
Want your logo to look futuristic and modern? Stick it in a circle and put some triangles around. Invert half the colors, then another half.
Max Krieger has a great writeup on the probable inflection point: Tomorrowland. As the story goes, Tomorrowland at Disney - the part of the park meant to look like it’s from the future - would very quickly look very outdated each time they tried to update it. Instead, in 1994 they decided to own being outdated. They came up with a ridiculously fun “timeless” futuristic look, mixing industrial design with Jules Verne. Factory Pomo’s signature was all over the blueprints.
The look quickly escaped the theme park and was especially prevalent in the booming mid 90s home computer market. It’s the Packard Bell cyborg, it’s the logo in Video Toaster. If you caught that The X Files logo earlier is both Factory Pomo with the tall type and X in a ring AND Grunge with the typewriter X in the background, you win 5 bonus Pogs.
EDIT: aaaaaaa How could I forget the most famous example! The “Always Coca Cola” ad campaign!
And it’s a stretch, but one could draw a line between Factory Pomo’s inverted black and whites and the Ska movement’s two-tone checkerboards. Maybe. Possibly. I’d have to call Tony Hawk to double check.
Back to Froyo Tam for a second, but that bit about them coining the term? That was in 2017. “Factory Pomo” didn’t have a name for like… 25 years. How’s that possible, you may wonder? Weren’t designers following a defined style? Well, yes and no. I think people were designing stuff to look a certain way, but it’s less a game of “this is what the aesthetic looks like” and more like a game of telephone.
If you do an architecture tour in a major city, you’ll learn that every building and skyscraper is classified to a specific architectural movement. Every building that is but ones built in the last 20-30 years. Newer buildings have to wait a few decades for official classification. Historians need time and perspective to figure out what emerging trends in architecture are going on, whose work influenced who, that sort of thing.
Designing a logo for Slim Jims or Cherry Coke takes considerably less time than constructing a skyscraper, but I think the same principle holds true. It’s really difficult to tell what’s a trend and what’s a fad when you’re living in the moment. I couldn’t tell you what’s the defining aesthetic for the 2020s right now. It’ll be obvious in 2053, but right now, no clue.
Enough time has passed between the nineties and today that we can pick this stuff apart easily. Maybe if you’re lucky, you can be the first to classify these design movements, too.
Working on a part three! I’ll look into a few other trends and address the big question– Is the Y2K aesthetic actually a 90s thing? More to come.
*A ton of these examples above are from the CARI Institute, which you should totally check out, they’ve been cataloging this stuff for years.
GRUBODILE, CROCOON & MIMICROC (Bug/Dark) The Mimicry pokemon
This bug family has evolved over time to mimic the appearences of SANDILE, KROKOROK & KROOKODILE, with whom they share a habitat, this in order to intimidate any possible predator
GRUBODILE is based on the Sphinx hawk moth caterpillar and its ability to imitate a snake
CROCOON is based on the Owl Butterfly chrysalis, a cocoon that imitates the look of a snake
MIMICROC is based on the Peanut-Headed lanternfly and the Crocodile lanternfly
