Flat and material design differences. Flat design: history, benefits and application in practice

Flat design is a key trend in design for the coming years, so let's take a closer look at it and learn about the 5 fundamental principles that formed its basis.

Introduction to flat design

In Russian, flat design is translated as “flat design”, and it became an absolute favorite after the Apple presentation of iOS. A minimalistic approach to design for usability has taken center stage. The focus is on user comfort. This is a pronounced protest against "squeeformism" (visualization of objects, as in reality). The choice fell on more simplified and at the same time aesthetically simple solutions. Users who are tired of realistic visualizations enthusiastically greeted this direction, and more and more web projects are moving to this format.

I would like to note that “flat” does not mean “boring”. Flat design solutions can be beautiful, they are more refined, clean, free from redundancy of anything, transforming into an “island of calm”. They finally make the content understandable. It remains to learn the basic principles in order to put them into practice.

"Flat" design does not seek to convey volumes, so two-dimensional visualization is the basis. This means that you will not see any shadows, reflections, or highlights with textures (the exception is long shadows). Only the transfer of contours, and nothing more.

It is recommended to use monosyllabic figures in the design, as well as to follow the clarity of the contours, which is designed to emphasize lightness and weightlessness. In addition, such concise elements imitate the sensor well, generating a desire to interact with the object (call for pressing, touching). However, the simplicity of the elements does not equal the simplicity of the design as a whole - this applies only to the outlines. As a result, everything that the user sees is clear to him, and he can easily use it.

Flat design calls for extremely careful work with fonts. That is, their character must complement the design scheme, without contradicting it. Moreover, in flat design, the font is also a key navigational element.

Not only type, but also color is an essential part of flat design. The vast majority of palettes are based on 2-3 colors, although, of course, there are exceptions. Usually juicy and bright, but pure colors are chosen. As noted, there are no gradients or unnecessary transitions.

Flat design is a prime example of such a worldwide trend as minimalism. Designers are abandoning unnecessary "bells and whistles", moving away from complex and implicit approaches to visualization, which bears fruit in the form of user activity.

Flat or almost flat? Looking for a compromise!

In conclusion, I would like to note that today there is a synergy between flat and non-flat design. We are talking about an "almost flat" design. This is the most common application of the described concept, when, along with simple and concise elements and two-dimensional space, designers use 1-2 tricks for depth and perspective.

Also, the trend of 2017 was Semi Flat Design - a semi-flat design. Influenced by Material Design, it has become a bit more spatial. There are light shadows that make the design semi-flat. Flat design is still relevant today, due to the shadows it has become deeper and more complex, but the main concept is not violated.

The flat design revolution has continued to gain momentum since it was introduced to the Windows Phone platform in 2010. It’s not hard to see why: an interface with this design seems more intuitive, well-suited for responsive elements, modern frameworks, and looks attractive when done well.
Flat design began to exist as a counterpoint to the ubiquitous skeuomorphic style, but has since become much more than just "Option B".

Initially, flat was exclusively two-dimensional with a total focus on minimalism. Modern flat 2.o uses shadows, gradients and other elements that make it "almost flat".

5 characteristic components of modern flat design:

1. Long shadows
Long shadows add depth and dimension to images without having to sacrifice the minimalistic icon details that make the interface attractive.

2. Dynamic colors
Complementing sparse visuals is simple with vibrant colors, especially lighter shades.
Different color backgrounds in contrast with the base color of the elements make the page with a "tiled" menu more lively.
The Flat UI Colors website contains the most effective color patterns for flat.

3. Simple typography
The choice of a font in flat is driven by one criterion: readability. Commonly used sans-serif fonts have a constant stroke width.

4. Transparent button
One of the trending elements in modern web design. The reason is that it does not attract too much attention, but is clearly recognizable as a button.

5. Minimalism
Flat and minimalism go hand in hand, using the same principles: simplicity and content focus.
It may seem that the use of flat design is a universal solution, but minimalism is difficult to implement: the fewer work elements, the more attention they require.

As great as flat design may seem, there is no guarantee that it will work for your site. Check out its main advantages to understand whether it is worth planning a global redesign.

Advantages:
used in the adaptive interface;
simplifies navigation for the user;
clear structure and schematic visuals emphasize the internal logic of the page;
fast page loading, due to the simplicity of graphics;
familiar typography enhances readability.

Flat design is all about simplicity and minimalism, which on the other hand makes it difficult to communicate visually complex messages. Therefore, before throwing headlong into simplifying the interface, you should carefully consider the scheme of interaction between the site and the user.

Based on Web design book of trends.

Today we will focus our attention on one of the most popular areas of modern graphic design, which is called flat design.

The famous artist Edgar Degas once said: "Art is not what you see, but what you let others see." This also applies to graphic design, which can also be defined as art that solves a specific problem. Graphic design is able to change the mood and message through the slightest changes in shapes and shades, lettering and spacing. Trends in this area that have become an integral part of everyday life, as they influence the decision-making and problem solving process of presenting a modern product, as well as shaping the tastes of users.

Today, the term "flat design" is used in graphics for a variety of purposes and tasks that share common stylistic features. Flat design is a direction that has found many manifestations in the field of digital products, thanks to the concise use of visual expressive means.

The term is now widely used as the opposite of "rich design" due to the harmonious simplicity that this approach is based on. The most notable feature that gave this movement its name is the use of flat 2D visual details, as opposed to the highly realistic and detailed skeuomorphic images. Flat design has been actively developing over the past years, covering more and more areas of graphic design, which find wide and varied applications in the field of digital design for web and mobile interfaces. This approach can be seen as a style that enhances the usability and visual harmony of user interfaces.

History of flat design

Obviously, flat design did not appear out of thin air. Its origin is usually considered the Swiss style. Swiss Style, also known as International Typographic Style or International Style for short, is a trend that originated in the 1920s but was met with great criticism and then received a resurgence in graphic design in Switzerland in the 1940s and 50s. years, which became a solid basis for graphic design of the mid-20th century around the world. The founders of this creative movement were Josef Müller-Brockmann and Armin Hofmann.

According to the Design Is History website, a summary of the key features of this style is as follows: “…the style focused on simplicity, readability, and objectivity. The legacy of this style is the use of sans-serifs, grids, and asymmetrical layouts. Also stands out and photos as a means of visual communication. The main influential works were designed as posters, which were considered the most effective means of delivering information."

The exemplary posters show that the style's adherents enjoyed simple forms, bold and strict typefaces with a high degree of readability, geometric combinations of details, flat illustrations, and a clear visual hierarchy. Swiss design quickly became more and more popular in different countries and received a new life in the art of the early 21st century.

Although this style has received many expressions in the field of visual design for print: posters, stamps, postcards, book covers, magazines, etc., it has significantly expanded its horizons in the era of digital design, especially in the field of user interface design.

Websites and mobile apps have opened up an amazing and fruitful vista for this minimalistic and functional approach to design solutions. The style was called "flat design", which immediately became popular and began a new direction in graphic design.

Microsoft took the first step towards increasing the popularity of flat UI in digital products, this movement began in the early 2000s and has developed widely in 2010 products, in particular in the development of mobile interfaces for Windows Phone 7. The main features of flat design, such as intuitive simple shapes, bold crisp typography, bright contrasting colors, long shadows, lack of intricate details and textures, took root well. The next upsurge in flat design came in 2013, when Apple released iOS 7 based on flat graphics principles as the basis for user-friendly, intuitive interfaces. It can also be said that some of the key principles of flat design found their way into Google's Material Design.

So the main features of flat design are:

• simplicity of forms and elements;
• minimalism;
• functionality;
• bold and well-read typography;
• clear and strict visual hierarchy;
• a combination of contrasting colors that provides a quick visual perception;
• avoiding textures, gradients and complex shapes;
• application of grid principles, geometric approach and visual balance.

Benefits of flat design

Phdat design has a number of advantages that have determined its popularity and diversity in digital design. Among the most significant:

• readability;
• clear visual hierarchy through shapes, colors and fonts;
• effective organization of fast and intuitive navigation in web and mobile interfaces;
• easy scalability for responsive design;
• negligible burden on the digital system.

With all of the above, flat design provides a wide field for creative exploration and stylistic concepts.

Flat design - application in practice

The variety of design trends available and evolving these days lend themselves well to flat design due to its flexibility and artistic freedom.

Even at the initial stage of planning the overall layout, logic and transitions, the principles of flat design can be applied. The digital design tools and software used at this crucial stage allow designers to present to clients and the team a single layout of all application screens or web pages, and even this basic layout already has the key visualization features typical of flat design. At this stage, it is ideal for quickly and efficiently displaying design solutions shown in a simple monochrome scheme.

User interface design

User interfaces have definitely become a broad and favorable field for flat design. It has found its development both in abstract concepts of user interaction and in a variety of original interfaces, icons, interface elements and illustrations.

Illustrations like these provide additional support for digital products and tend to be more complex in terms of detailing and satisfying the aesthetic needs of users, while at the same time making an instant connection to a particular theme.

printed illustrations

The diversity of the goals of modern flat design and its growing popularity in digital products has also influenced other areas of design, in particular the design for printed products such as posters and book covers, from which this approach once originated.

Branding

These days, brand design is also successfully applying flat design principles due to its flexibility, with many products being presented on devices or getting digital support online. Flat design in branding is often represented in logos and app icons.

All the facts and benefits mentioned about flat design definitely do not mean that this style has won over other design approaches. Each style and direction of design has its advantages and disadvantages. However, flat design has opened up new perspectives, especially in the field of custom solutions that represent a harmonious balance of beauty and functionality.

What is flat design? This design direction is one of the most discussed on the Internet. In short, flat design is an extremely simplified style, the roots of which go back to minimalism. But this is not exactly minimalism, as this style can take many different forms depending on the design requirements. To better understand what flat design is, it's best to go backwards and define what it's not exactly.

This is not 3D. By itself, 3D graphics allows you to get very realistic, but at the same time two-dimensional images. Unlike 3D, flat design does not pay much attention to details that create depth and dimension, such as shadows, highlights, and textures.

This is not a skeuomorphism. Flat design appeared as an alternative to pseudo-dimensional design elements that imitated real objects or processes. Skeuomorphism involves the active use of various effects: shadows, reflections, reflections and realistic textures. There is nothing of this in flat design and cannot be.

For the first time, people started talking about flat design in 2012-2013, when this style first appeared. The trend was very noticeable and made a lot of noise, since one of the first to start developing this direction was Microsoft. The release of Windows 8 with a new interface forever changed the design and largely predetermined the development vector of the web, at least its visual component.

Apple did not stand aside, which also abandoned pseudo-volumetric elements in the design of the interfaces of its devices. Microsoft and Apple created a new reality where outdated websites had no place. At the same time, Apple did not act as radically as its eternal competitor, and gradually got rid of elements of skeuomorphism.

Flat design itself is neither bad nor good, web designers make it convenient or inconvenient. But to be honest, flat design in its extremes is not very aesthetically pleasing. Probably, the sweet spot in this case is somewhere in the middle between flat and pseudo-volumetric elements.

It is quite possible that the trend towards extreme simplification, which has been dominating over the past few years, will be replaced by something else. There are some prerequisites for this - for example, the Material Design direction, created by the designers of Google Corporation.

COMPATIBLE WITH ADAPTIVE DESIGN

Microsoft and Apple's move away from skeuomorphism in interface design has had big repercussions. The new style was almost immediately adopted as a new approach to UX. Since then, flat design has become a dominant trend that is still relevant. Today, flat elements are ubiquitous, we see them on websites, in applications and on the displays of various devices.

Flat design principles apply to a wide variety of design categories, but its strict grids and simplistic graphics display best on small screen devices.

The trend towards minimalism has greatly simplified the work of designers - it has become easier for them to design interfaces that display correctly on any type of device. In the case of pseudo-3D elements, this was not the case - sometimes an interface that looked amazing on a desktop screen turned into a pumpkin of something indistinct on a mobile device.

One of the main advantages of flat design is its scalability. Flat elements look good no matter the size and are much easier to work with than pixel-perfect designs.

FLEXIBLE PLATFORM

Flat design in its pursuit of simplicity is characterized by good flexibility: all elements are usually created from uniform geometric shapes, which makes it easy to create a balanced layout where each module or block has its place. At the same time, all elements are easily distinguishable and, importantly, they can be quickly swapped during operation without violating the original settings.

Grids also have a flexible structure that can be presented in a variety of configurations. This allows designers to create the most optimal approaches that best showcase the content at their disposal. The absence of restrictions and the need to adjust the grid in case of changes or additions of new elements significantly speeds up the workflow.

READABLE TYPOGRAPHY

Flat design has fundamentally changed how designers think about typography. The new style required a different approach to the choice of fonts and to the quality of layout. As a result, the absence of shadows and various effects made the texts more readable.

Flat design tends to make extensive use of sans-serifs, however, this is not akisome and serifs can also look good when paired with flat elements. Serif fonts will be quite appropriate as a heading, and they can also be used in the body text, if the typography does not violate the compositional unity.

MINUSES

It may seem that flat design has no flaws, but it is not. In their quest to emphasize clean lines and shapes, some designers fall into the trap of focusing on aesthetics while forgetting usability. A simple and beautiful design, in which there is nothing superfluous, is not always convenient, and such errors are especially pronounced when using mobile devices.

In flat design, it is often difficult to tell which element is interactive and which is not. Everything is the same, there are no obvious differences, all elements lie in the same plane. In the pursuit of simplicity, designers may inadvertently hide or unwittingly mask important features or actions, and the user, not seeing the usual prompts, may lose their bearings on the site.

Let's take this site as an example. What elements in it are interactive. All? Or just some? Unclear. This can only be found out by the “poke method”, but these are already extra movements, which is undesirable.

LOSS OF INDIVIDUALITY

For any brand, business or design project, uniqueness is of the utmost importance. Whether it's a website, an application, a booklet, a poster or a business card, the design must be original and well recognizable.

One of the disadvantages of flat design is its visual style. The use of simple geometric shapes often results in two completely different designs being very similar to each other. Designers who use flat elements are limited in what they can do because they don't have a lot of viable choices. Recently, on the Internet you can see a lot of clone sites that are not actually clones. It's just a coincidence. Moreover, the coincidence is unpleasant, since the site loses its much-needed individuality, getting lost against the background of other resources with a similar design.

Sometimes it gets ridiculous. Looking at these pictures, you might think that we have different sections of the same application. But no, the designers Marco La Mantia and Simone Lippolis worked independently. Basic geometric shapes and a white sans-serif font are used as the main design elements - the solution is more than logical. But the result is deplorable - the same color scheme completely deprived the design of uniqueness. And there are many such cases.

CHASING FASHION

Flat design will remain one of the hottest trends for a long time to come, simply because it looks good on mobile device displays. But many designers choose flat not only because it allows you to quickly solve most of the tasks, but also because of their desire to create something modern and fashionable.

However, in the pursuit of fashion, one can make a serious mistake: if you mindlessly follow all the trends, it is quite possible to forget about the usefulness of design. Flat can be very beautiful, elegant and even graceful, but still, the choice of a designer should be determined by functionality, and not by the desire for beauty. Sometimes the desire to “shove” something fashionable into the design only hurts, for example, long shadows, one of the most recognizable flat design chips.

Before us are the works of designers Alexander Lototsky and Erik Malmskeld. These are typical examples of the use of long shadows in design. Now you won’t surprise anyone with this, but at one time, and both works were created back in 2013, when flat design was just coming into fashion, the new visual style was very interesting and attractive. As a result, there are so many similar icons that today the use of shadows is a formulaic and uninteresting solution. It used to be fashionable, but not anymore. Shadows are like shadows. They have no meaning, they do not perform any useful function.

POOR FONT SELECTION

Every designer dreams of creating something beautiful and functional at the same time. But in the pursuit of aesthetics, you can make poor choices that will affect usability. An example is the craze for thin and light fonts. This type of typography looks clean and light, but it's hard to read.

Sometimes choosing a thin font is justified - for example, for use in headings. But when the main text is typed in the same font, it is often impossible to read it. Such errors are especially noticeable on mobile devices - the small screen size drastically reduces the readability of the content.

FLAT 2.0

Over the past few years, designers have experimented with flat elements and brought a lot of new things to flat design. The style is fully formed and like any other established style, it has its pros and cons.

At the dawn of its appearance, flat was distinguished by strict visual simplicity, there was no hint of shadows and structures in it. Even gradients were not held in high esteem, although they do not contradict the principles of flat design.

But gradually, designers began to move away from too simple solutions, trying to find some kind of compromise solution between flat and skeuomorphism. The result is a new style that some designers call Flat 2.0. Shadows, gradients, and even light, almost imperceptible structures gradually began to appear in design elements. Flat design clearly lacks depth, and designers have begun to use hybrid approaches. For example, visually arrange elements at different levels, experiment with shades and shadows. Another frequently used example of a hybrid approach is the use of not only icons and flat vector-like illustrations in the flat, but also photographs.

Google has done a lot to promote Flat 2.0. The Material Design Guideline is an attempt to create a new visual language that combines flat and three-dimensional design elements. Google's recommendations are very detailed and easy to follow. At the same time, Google does not insist on strict adherence to all the rules set out in the guideline - designers can experiment by creating their own original projects, where a variety of elements can be combined.

CONCLUSION

Today, Flat 2.0 is in its infancy, but the direction in which this style will develop is already quite discernible. Significant changes are not expected - trendsetters Google, Apple and Microsoft are not going to abandon the flat. If there are any changes, they will be minor - new approaches will appear, someone will come up with an interesting "chip", attempts will continue to take the best of skeuomorphism. But in a global sense, one should not expect anything really new - flat design is a long-term trend and only a style that best suits new technologies that do not yet exist can shift it from its won positions.