The New Aesthetic and Commercial Visual Culture
"I started by explaining how commercial art is such a hungry culture it constantly demands new ways of looking at things, which is why they’re always looking for what’s novel. For example in the 70s the cool, novel thing was the space race which is why you got hundreds of ads and logos and album covers that had space in them for no reason whatsoever."
Gives an explanation for QR Codes as well. Hint: It’s not the designers.