Fuck flat
Out of context: Reply #7
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- tOki0
Microsoft made a bold move, and google have actually been doing it for years too (around when G+ came out). Apple are very late to the game considering what we've come to expect, and have done a poor job at a purely aesthetic level.
Whilst definitely a trend - "Flat" design is the natural reaction to the excesses of "web 2.0" and rainbow effect ridden space images of wolves and so forth.
It makes sense from a practical perspective too - our layouts are no longer fixed, and must load quickly on mobile devices. Personally I like how it gets down to core principles and draws attention to well thought out information, but think that some people are too purist in their application and this can actually be detrimental to UX. In the same way that some of us went too far with skeumorphism.
For example the new version of facebook, in my opinion, has lost a bit of it's clarity in favour of flatter visuals. I was actually a fan of their increasingly restrained approach but feel they've now gone too far.
I think that there's always going to be a place for gradients and other non flat things, just a lot of designers have "grown up" and hopefully are being a bit more subtle/elegant in their use of such things.
At the end of the day, our job is to communicate and/or provide utility - whatever technique does the job best should be the one you use :)