Visual Design Cliches: Radiating Lines

Over the past couple of years, radiating lines have become one of the most common visual devices and overused cliches. It's one of those things that, once you notice it, you start to see it everywhere. It's a cheap and easy way to make an otherwise pedestrian message a more dynamic and visual "exciting". Often, you don't consciously "see" it. It is just a background element after all. It works like the visual equivalent of MSG, you and to and crappy layout and it becomes a little less crappy, but not really better. I've seen it used several times as a rotating background on the text-filled screen in car commercials where they show you the finance numbers.

In a culture so oversaturated visually, the demand for everything to be more and more visually stimulating just keeps increasing to the point where even an airline drink special needs to be communicated with emphatic pizazz of the Japanese Army's Imperial war flag.