Corporate Memphis

Founded by Slack, Facebook, Instagram design teams · Illustration, applied by tech companies, 2016 onward

Philosophy

The Story

Corporate Memphis is named after the Memphis Group (the 1980s Italian design movement) but shares only the spirit of playful abstraction. It was popularized by Slack's 2016 illustration style and quickly became the default visual language of tech companies on social media. Its characteristics: flat colors, no outlines on the illustrations, abstract humans with exaggerated proportions, warm skin tones in non-realistic colors (blue, purple, yellow). The idea: you can show diversity without depicting specific people, which sidesteps the problem of illustration looking dated as hiring changes. It is also infinitely scalable — SVG files that look the same at 40px and 4000px. The critique: it has become so ubiquitous that it is now the visual equivalent of corporate jargon. Every tech company looks the same.

Design Parameters

Best For

Notable Examples