A step and repeat is the backdrop printed with rows of the same logos that stands behind guests at premieres, galas and press events. Celebrities stop in front of it, pose, move along and pose again, and every resulting picture carries the sponsor’s name however it is cropped.
The name has a technical pedigree: Merriam-Webster records step-and-repeat as a printing method in which a single image is exposed again and again across the same surface, which is exactly what the wall looks like. Not everyone is a fan. Writing about the craze in 2007, the Barneys creative director Simon Doonan compared the jumble of film, charity and brand logos to a revival of Dada. The Oscars give theirs a little more thought: in 2017 the backdrop on the carpet was a geometric cut-out pattern built around the silhouette of the statuette.