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This month, Rylie Revercomb will talk about the reborn aesthetic Frutiger Aero, and how it is taking over the internet.
Frutiger Aero
Frutiger Aero
By: Rylie Revercomb
By: Rylie Revercomb
If you were a kid in the 2000s or early 2010s, then you probably remember the familiar Frutiger Aero Aesthetic. Being popular in this era, this aesthetic combines glossy textures and “retro-futuristic” design motifs, which are both appealing to the eye. Brands like Windows Aero and iOS used this design for their app icons and backgrounds back when it was popular… but towards 2013, the design fell off. Frutiger Aero was replaced by Frutiger Metro, and then Flat Design, marking the end of the naturalist style era. Or was it? Recently, the design has made a comeback, popping up all over social media as 2000s kids reminisce about their childhood. So let's dive back into 2008 and think of simpler times.
What even IS Frutiger Aero?
What even IS Frutiger Aero?
What is Frutiger Aero? A member of Consumer Aesthetics Research, (Also known as CARI), identified this trend back in 2017, four years after the trend itself was over. Sofi Lee says she remembers being drawn to the natural yet futuristic elements of Frutiger Aero when she was growing up, saying in an interview with Dazed, “I was in my teens when Vista came out, and I was so excited because I thought it was the coolest-looking thing in existence. It was glossy and glowing, and just seemed like it represented a huge step forward in terms of what interfaces could look like.” Lee says that the design combines elements like glossy textures, glass, technology, transparent materials, and bokeh to create the naturalist aesthetic that we know and love today.
Image of Frutiger Aero City by: Google
Popular in the 2000s
Popular in the 2000s
The aesthetic was soon adopted by the mainstream, and became increasingly prevalent from 2004-2007. CARI says popular brands and companies liked the aesthetic because it was seen by some as “'Humanizing’ tech and making it accessible to a wide audience.” The aesthetic was appealing, and approachable, drawing in people from all groups and ages as it made them hopeful for the future and the world we could live in with technology by our sides. Companies realized this, and immediately began to change their marketing strategies. Frutiger Aero began popping up everywhere: laundry detergent brands, frozen yogurt tubes, and the commonly-known Softsoap fish bottle. Games started incorporating this aesthetic, too, like the popular web games Purble Place, Nintendo’s Mario Galaxy, and the Playstation home screen. They all utilized this web aesthetic to draw in more customers-- of course, using the common four colors that make up Frutiger Aero: Blue, Green, White, and Yellow. It was the beginning of an era.
The downfall of frutiger aero...
The downfall of frutiger aero...
Image of Nintendo's 3-DS Theme Layout by: Theme Plaza
It was the end of an era. Used for a long time, the decline of the Frutiger Aero look started slowly with the popularization of a new web aesthetic: Corporate Memphis. The exact opposite of Frutiger Aero. However, what really sealed the fate of Frutiger Aero was the commercial failure of the Wii U. It was the last console to fully embrace the design and aesthetic but was seen in Nintendo’s eyes as a huge bust. According to Polygon, “Nintendo only sold just over 13 million Wii U consoles, making it one of the company’s worst-selling systems.” That was basically the end of it. Four years later, in 2017, almost all traces of Frutiger Aero had been wiped out and replaced by the minimalistic Corporate Memphis aesthetic. Only a few remnants of the aesthetic persisted, hiding in the dark corners of the world by being preset on only textbook covers and retail product packaging. It was… the end.
The Revival
The Revival
At least, that’s what we thought for so many years. The aesthetic has not really been talked about since Sofi Lee’s article in 2017. For almost seven years, it has been living in the dark-- that is until the internet did the thing it does best, unearthing random things from the past and making them popular again. At some point toward the start of 2024, Nostalgia pages quickly became popular on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more. Social media was flooded with pictures and videos from the earlier 2000s, as people began to reminisce about their childhoods, wishing for the simplicity of it all again. Frutiger Aero was shortly unearthed again. It exploded on the internet, and quickly regained dominance and popularity in the digital playground. One person even made a website called Skeuoss.net, which was made specifically to keep the aesthetic alive and educate clueless people about what Frutiger Aero is. People made games on Roblox, playlists on Spotify that embodied the aesthetic, photo collages, etc. Frutiger Aero was reborn, and perhaps became more popular than ever.
Once dominant in the design industry, Frutiger Aero has made a comeback once more. Having experienced a recent resurgence, Frutiger Aero is now more popular than ever; capturing the hearts of nostalgia freaks and even kids who can’t remember ever owning a Wii or Xbox. This has solidified this aesthetic's place in the ever-changing and evolving world of digital design. So jump back into the early 2000s and breathe in the visually pleasing Frutiger Aero aesthetic.
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