Flat Design
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- monospaced0
So it's agreed then, we bring back grunge/hand-drawn starting November?
- Ianbolton0
so, in the future everything will be flat colours, possibly grey; simple type, maybe helvetica and ultra responsive? Isn't design getting little fucking boring – again?!
It's inevitable we constantly evolve to simplify everything in our daily routines, but lets not get carried away. We'll still need big, blinged up 3D graphics to grab our attention every now and then.- We do, timing is
everything, though.mikotondria3 - Who said grey and boring? I think Flat design has really ushered in great colour pallettes, and better more thoughtful use of colour
itsricky
- We do, timing is
- i_monk0
The next generation is always the worst.
- d_rek0
Whatever happened to the time people made context-sensitive, audience appropriate design decisions?
All I see here is a bunch of trend-whoring.
- +1skwiotsmith
- exactlyhans_glib
- Trends can be audience appropriatepig
- No argument there pig.d_rek
- pig0
I suspect part of this is down to a lack of 'technical' training in college, definitely as far as European education is concerned.Young designers simply aren't as knowledgeable with software so find it more difficult to express themselves, all the while being very suspicious of gimmicky filters.
In my London-centric POV: I received almost no 'technical' training, it was all theory. I left uni with only basic software skills outside my comfort zone and had to learn on the job.
A lot of European education is all belt, no trousers. So the current trend is making the best of what the trendmakers 'know'.
- d_rek0
@pig
Haha! That was pretty much my college experience. All theory. I remember an instructor explicitly telling our class that he was "Not here to teach us how to use software". Which was fine. I was probably more fluent with the tools of the trade at the time than he was. But there were definitely students that were not and I saw there 'formal' education lacking because they had difficulty executing ideas.
And I would even argue that a lot of the 'theory' that was taught in college was highly dubious at best. My design program was primarily built up around Bauhaus + Paul Rand theory of 'process' and exploration, with a little chance methodologies thrown in just to fuck with people.
I have found that very little of that actual theory I was taught in design school has been highly effective or even applicable in my professional career thus far. Which makes me question the usefulness of such instruction.
Anyway, I am not opposed to 'flat design'. I actually think windows8 is rather beautiful in it's simplicity, and that flatter UI experiences generally have a tighter focus on actual interaction design and not just pretty UI.
- I did like Rand's line on design being purely about shape, line, colour, form. Content/context should be taught separately.pig
- Shape, Line, Colour, Form are not exlusive to Rand though.d_rek
- Those are basic principles of any formal art education... covered in usually the most basic classes.d_rek
- not basic, but foundation classesd_rek
- Rand promoted rationale in design process more than anythingd_rek
- I just like how he differentiated from actually designing vs. it's context. Students (like me) can get lost in context very easily.pig
- i_monk0
"Whatever happened to the time people made context-sensitive, audience appropriate design decisions?" – d_rek
The same thing that happened to the time clients would pay for it.
- mikotondria30
Can I venture that flat design only really works and is aesthetically pleasing with good typography ?
And that webfont typography is fairly recent, and that flat design is possibly its first big influence ?
Imagine a lovely modern, light, feminine, flat interface with jagged Arial or Verdana 11pt in it - it would look unfinished as people's eyes are so so so tired of the old school of faces - Arial, Verdana, Times, Georgia - that was it for a long time, that's all you could use. Now everyone has screen-smoothing and there are thousands of valid, high-quality faces to use. Clients don't know why they're loving these simple, muted interfaces - it is, and really always was, about typography. We're just having a brief moment of clarity before it gets crazy again :)
- monospaced0
I was also thinking along the same lines, miko, that aside from great type (legibility), another thing would be color palettes. I find that some of this trend has a lot to do with color, albeit none of those are really new either.
- SameContinuity
- anyway, my point being, I blame Wolff Olinsmonospaced
- doesnotexist0
i've been pushing this since 2010
- benfal990
NOTE OPEN
the whole point of this thread is not to pretend that 'flat design' is new... many of you seems to stick to that point trying to say "it's not new!" ... Saying something is a trend doesnt mean its new.
END OF NOTE
- oh man we have rules here? fahckdoesnotexist
- not reallybenfal99
- oh, well then...doesnotexist
- monospaced0
Here's a flat game. Apologize if timelined. 7x7
- mekk0
I really like the feel of a really consequent flat design but one thing really bugs me:
Printing techniques have dramatically increased and we have high-resolution display everywhere. even in our dishwashers, coffee machines, cars etc etc..
So why the fuck don't we take advantage of 16 mil. colors, a 60fps steady screen, crisp, ultrasharp and 300ppi fonts? Go back to a 10-color interface on black background?
I mean really, it's very nice looking but its three steps backwards to what is technically possible. There is no need for flat designs imho.
- It's just a counter-style to heavy skeuomorphismd_rek
- there's a time and a place for eachd_rek
- what drek saysbenfal99
- ..partially because even simple stuff looks great on 60fps, 300dpi...mikotondria3
- But we do! In my work (AI and PS) im pusing the full gamut of colours for my flat design, and the use of really soft gradients to enhance butrons is only something we can really do well with HD displays to avoid banding. Cheer up mate!itsricky