Nope, if you have a copy of Illustrator and know how to use grids then you’re pretty much all set! Everytime I throw something like this together my employers are impressed and I die a little more inside.

Yes, actually - I know a few people in the industry and they’ve basically agreed that the entire reason this style exists is because someone will come to your design firm and say “Hey, I’ve got this thing I need designed ASAP, here’s my budget”, and said budget is way too small to make something actually good in as short of a timeframe as they give you. Doubly so if they’re going to your competitors as well and fishing for results from them too. So you slap together some stupid bullshit that looks fine, trying to get a good enough result back to the client before your competitors do, hoping they go with yours for the finished product.

And I mean, “cheap, looks fine to advertising wonks, can be put together in a hurry”? Yeah that pretty much perfectly defines this art style.

The art of the proletariat when pressed on time in the service of a boss