{"id":2271,"date":"2016-11-15T18:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T15:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tubikstudio.com\/?p=2271"},"modified":"2023-08-16T08:34:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T08:34:27","slug":"flat-design-history-benefits-and-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tubikstudio.com\/blog\/flat-design-history-benefits-and-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat Design. History, Benefits and Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Famous artist Edgar Degas once said: “Art\u00a0is not what you see, but what you make others see.” In terms of graphic design, which could be also defined as art solving the particular task, this flow goes even further: what you make others see often says them what to do, what to pay attention to and helps to solve some problems. Graphic design is able to change the mood and message via the slightest changes of shapes and shades, letters and spacing. Trends in this sphere, which has become an integral part of everyday life, present an\u00a0important object of consideration as they influence decision-making and problem-solving potential of modern products as well as form users’ tastes. Today we are going to focus our attention on one of the most popular directions of modern graphic design called flat design.<\/span><\/p>\n

Definition of\u00a0flat design<\/span><\/h2>\n

Today, the term “flat design” is applied to graphics for numerous purposes and tasks which have common stylistic features. Flat design is the direction that found its broad and diverse expression on digital art and is famous for minimalistic and concise use of visual expressive means. Nowadays the term is widely used as the opposite to “rich design” due to harmonic simplicity taken as the basis of this design approach. The most prominent feature which actually has inspired the name of this direction is applying flat 2-dimensional visual details as the opposite to highly realistic and detailed skeuomorphic images. Flat design has been developing actively for the last couple of years covering more and more fields of graphic design still finding the broadest and most diverse application in the sphere of digital design for web and mobile interfaces. This design approach is found as the style favorable for enhancing usability and visual harmony of user interfaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Origins of flat design<\/span><\/h2>\n

Obviously, flat design hasn’t appeared out of thin air. Its roots are usually set in the Swiss style which historians of the design sphere find its direct ancestor. The Swiss style, also known as International Typographic Style or shorter International Style, is the direction which appeared and got its dose of criticism in the 1920s and later won its bright expression in graphic design in Switzerland of 1940-50s fairly becoming the solid foundation of graphic design of mid 20th century around the world. The leaders of this creative movement were Josef M\u00fcller-Brockmann, the representative of the Zurich School of Arts and Krafts, and Armin Hofmann from the Basel School of Design. According to Design Is History<\/a> portal, the brief description of key features of this style is the following: “…the style favored simplicity, legibility and objectivity. Of the many contributions to develop from the two schools were the use of, sans-serif typography, grids, and asymmetrical layouts. Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication. The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Josep M\u00fcller-Brockmann, Auto\u00a0Club of Switzerland Poster, 1955<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Joseph M\u00fcller-Brockmann, \u00a0Z\u00fcrich Town Hall Poster, 1955<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Armin Hoffman, 1959 poster for the ballet Giselle<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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The posters featured here as examples make it obvious that fans of this style liked simple forms, bold and strict fonts of high readability level, harmonic and geometrically based combinations of details, flat illustrations and clear visual hierarchy. It quickly grew more and more popular in different countries of the world and got its new life in the art of the early 21st century.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although this style got a variety of expressions in the sphere of visual design for print, like posters, stamps, postcards, book covers, magazines, etc., it significantly broadened its horizons with the era of digital design, especially in the domain of design for user interfaces. Websites and mobile applications going through the dynamic development of creative search opened the amazing and fruitful perspective for this minimalist and functional approach to design solutions. The style got the name “flat design” which became instantly popular and started a new direction in graphic design daring skeuomorphism and “rich design” and supported with new challenges opened by the field of interaction design.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first step to boosting flat UI popularity in digital products was taken by Microsoft presenting a new flat and minimalist style of their products: this movement started in the early 2000s and was widely adopted in the products of 2010, in particular in mobile interface design for Windows Phone 7. The basic features of flat design such as intuitive simple shapes, bold clear typography, bright contrast colors, long shadows, absence of complex details and textures found their further development leap in 2013 when Apple released iOS 7 based on the principles of flat graphic as the basis for user-friendly intuitive interfaces. It could be also said some key principles of flat design found their expression in Material Design for Google, still with some deviants like drop shadows, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Basic and prominent features of the flat design include:<\/span><\/p>\n