No, that's not the argument at all. "Art" and "design" do not imply infantilisation. No one accuses Dieter Rams of being infantile.
Infantilisation in design is specifically signified by cute animal mascots, large flat areas of primary and/or pastel colours, plain undemanding letter forms, use or implication of smiles and other emotional signifiers of friendliness or cuteness, use of relatable cartoons as primary graphics, and generally by aggressive simplification and removal of anything that requires some thought or effort to parse.
The Twitter and Amazon logos are infantile. The General Electric and IBM logos aren't. The Facebook "f" is more or less neutral, but the font chosen for the full "facebook" logotype wouldn't be out of place on the cover of an early reading book.
The point of infantilisation is that it signifies an experience of creativity without actually being creative. Instead of priming the imagination it just slides off it. It's all about locking you into a comfort zone instead of inspiring you to explore outside of it.
The Twitter and Amazon logos are infantile. The General Electric and IBM logos aren't. The Facebook "f" is more or less neutral, but the font chosen for the full "facebook" logotype wouldn't be out of place on the cover of an early reading book.
This seems very culture-specific. Hard, blocky typefaces like in the IBM logo don't scream mature to me--they just are what the main design preference of a bygone era was. The GE logo has squiggles that make it almost cartoonish, but it also clearly looks like something designed a hundred years ago. GE's ads 70 years ago were packed with color and cartoon characters[1], yet today they're held as an example of "mature" while flat design with solid text is immature.
I'm still unconvinced that this is anything more than "Old is good and mature. New design decisions are immature and bad for society." The same arguments were used against people reading books, people watching movies, rock and roll music, and so on. Within those realms, some things are steps back, but it's hard to say that they were regressive for humanity as a whole. Saying choosing a popular font is infantilizing is kind of stretching it. In 40 years, Amazon's current logo will make people think of grandpa's house and the good ol' days. 250 years ago, I'm sure someone was complaining about cursive replacing gothic blackletters being a sign of societal decline.
Of course there is no accounting for taste, but I don't think you can provide a rational argument why "large flat areas of primary and/or pastel colors" is particularly infantilizing.
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No, that's not the argument at all. "Art" and "design" do not imply infantilisation. No one accuses Dieter Rams of being infantile.
Infantilisation in design is specifically signified by cute animal mascots, large flat areas of primary and/or pastel colours, plain undemanding letter forms, use or implication of smiles and other emotional signifiers of friendliness or cuteness, use of relatable cartoons as primary graphics, and generally by aggressive simplification and removal of anything that requires some thought or effort to parse.
The Twitter and Amazon logos are infantile. The General Electric and IBM logos aren't. The Facebook "f" is more or less neutral, but the font chosen for the full "facebook" logotype wouldn't be out of place on the cover of an early reading book.
The point of infantilisation is that it signifies an experience of creativity without actually being creative. Instead of priming the imagination it just slides off it. It's all about locking you into a comfort zone instead of inspiring you to explore outside of it.
This seems very culture-specific. Hard, blocky typefaces like in the IBM logo don't scream mature to me--they just are what the main design preference of a bygone era was. The GE logo has squiggles that make it almost cartoonish, but it also clearly looks like something designed a hundred years ago. GE's ads 70 years ago were packed with color and cartoon characters[1], yet today they're held as an example of "mature" while flat design with solid text is immature.
I'm still unconvinced that this is anything more than "Old is good and mature. New design decisions are immature and bad for society." The same arguments were used against people reading books, people watching movies, rock and roll music, and so on. Within those realms, some things are steps back, but it's hard to say that they were regressive for humanity as a whole. Saying choosing a popular font is infantilizing is kind of stretching it. In 40 years, Amazon's current logo will make people think of grandpa's house and the good ol' days. 250 years ago, I'm sure someone was complaining about cursive replacing gothic blackletters being a sign of societal decline.
[1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/05/91/9805918dd46921330298...
Of course there is no accounting for taste, but I don't think you can provide a rational argument why "large flat areas of primary and/or pastel colors" is particularly infantilizing.