Design Trends: The World is Flat

Aesthetics are always evolving and new design trends keep falling in and out of popularity; in the early 1900s logos and ads were all about detailed and illustrious designs, the late 1900s gravitated towards pop art and the psychedelic movement. Now, if you look around at your phone, websites, and new logos, everything seems to be getting simpler and simpler. This latest trend is nothing new, even though it seems to have happened over night, and it’s called “Flat Design”.

What is Flat Design?

Flat Design is a term used to describe a simple style that is void of any stylistic elements such as gradients, shadows, textures, or any other type of design meant to make things appear 3D¹. As the name implies, everything is very flat and it strips away any of the bows and frills, leaving you only with the bare minimum. This might seem quite boring and unappealing but its established in practicality and necessity. Designers are always trying to answer the question, “How do we convey our message in the simplest, quickest, and most effective way possible?” Flat Design is answering that question by removing all the “fluff” and providing you with the essentials. In today’s day and age when everyone wants instant gratification and information as soon as possible, designers need something simple and effective to acquiesce to this modern day desire.

Where did it come from?

Flat Design is nothing new and we can trace its origins back to the Bauhaus movement and Swiss styles¹. The Bauhaus movement, originating in Germany during the early 1920s, was all about modernism; it emphasized ideas of economic sensibility and functionality. The other influence, Swiss Style, which dates back to the 40s and 50s, focused on the use of grids, sans-serif typography, and clean content hierarchy. Minimalism also has its hands all over flat design. Minimalism works to remove everything in a piece that is unnecessary, leaving only what is needed. Clean lines, geometric shapes, and bright colors are key aspects to minimalism¹.

Why the shift in design?

In order to understand the shift in design trends, you’ll need to know another design term: skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism is when something is designed to mimic details of real life objects². This was popular in software for a while because digital technology was new territory that people to needed to be guided through in order to understand. People needed to connect this new experience with that which they were familiar with. With skeuomorphism, graphics were more detailed and mimicked actual objects found in real life.

It served its purpose but eventually designers started to encounter problems. Skeuomorphics started to look dated and with the computers becoming such a strong presence in everyday lives, the need for detailed visual metaphors were no longer necessary. Also a big factor was the development of responsive design. With the many devices we use and their varying screen sizes, resolutions, and browsers, the more graphically involved a image is, the harder it is to get it to look good on different screens. Simplified graphics make it easier and faster to scale and incorporate on different devices.

What’s next?

Flat Design is all the rage now (just take a look at Google and Verizon’s new logo) and for good reason but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Design is fluid and ever changing. Just like we adapted from skeuomorphism to flat design, the future will bring something else. We can only speculate what the future has in store for us. But for now, when designing keep it simple.

 

 

Sources

1. http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/03/19/history-flat-design-efficiency-minimalism-made-digital-world-flat/
2. http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/what-flat-design-3132112
3. http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/07/09/the-future-of-flat-design/