I'm going to write one about the idiocy of the "flat" design fad. I wonder how people of 1900 would have felt about having to experimentally poke at things that looked like plain labels or placards, or decorative swatches of paint, to operate a machine.
Sounded like it was possibly an interesting topic but as happens far too often these days, the desire to have unique visual design ended up being an assault on the eyes. I'm very bearish on this type of (hideous) style above substance.
Yes, I have to wonder if this was done as sarcasm, too. It makes all those comments that flat design doesn't convey enough information, and makes everything indistinguishable, so true. It makes it very hard to understand what I'm seeing.
I think there should be a new term being coined, such as "flat design extremism", and it should be used as an example of how not to do things. Surely not everything perfectly flat is a good thing?
“One thing that really makes the flat design trend work is that it is new and fun.”
Not ‘a good idea’ or ‘usable’ or ‘accessible’, just different.
EDIT: Just to take the snarky edge off, I want to mention that whilst this might have been quite a good blog post if you've already decided to use Flat Design™, I'd have appreciated a discussion of the merits. But of course not all blog posts about anything are required to go into such a discussion.
This entire field of so-called *design" is WILDLY overrated. The biggest problem is that there is way too much mere fashion masquerading as "scientifically proven methodologies of human interaction with machines." There's so much ridiculousness in this space because "designers" treat their own preferences (or worse, those of their company) as nearly immutable laws. Just let me pick poofy or flat buttons and get over yourselves.
It's a writer just seeking to milk the whole "flat design" thing even more by categorizing small variations as a whole design movement. It's no coincidence that a company selling a kit has the most blog posts dedicated to it. flat and almost flat design have the exact same aesthetic.
Moreover, pegging designers to a trendy aesthetic is ridiculous.
Can we please, please, please stop trying to redesign everything under the sun, especially in the name of eco-friendliness or usability or some other such thing?
That is not to say that designs and decisions and concepts should not be questioned, but that they should not be questioned for questioning's sake. A lot of thought, time and effort goes into the design of recognizable brands and widely used things. Just because they are designed by behemoths does not necessarily mean that they don't know what they are doing. On the contrary I would think they have put a lot of thought into it and the designs work quite well given the constraints.
So if you are going to challenge it, please have something substantial that operates in the constraints that apply to the product, not just something that looks pretty.
> I'm not a designer, but I think most of the ideas on display here are fashion-forward dead ends.
This... It seems like these are "design for the sake of design", and doesn't take into account that the vast majority of users really don't care, as long as they know what the button does--which these examples don't really convey.
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