What Is Flat Design? Why Is This Trend So Popular?

The trend in website design (flat design) is now clearly pulling ahead of the traditional design styles of the past. It is a new trend that many people follow and like. To understand better what flat design is, here is a roundup of what you need to know about the trend flat design worth knowing.

What is flat design?

Flat design is an approach that uses no added effects to build an interface, with no 3D elements at all: no drop shadows, bevels, embossing, gradients or anything else meant to add depth or relief to the design on screen. The result is simpler imagery that still carries its full meaning.

A typical example of a flat interface is Metro UI on Windows 8, or the interface of Windows Phone. On the home screen you see separate blocks of color that are not skeuomorphic or three-dimensional. Simplicity always comes first.

Characteristics of flat design

No effects

As the name suggests, in this flat world everything in the design is flat. Nothing is decorated or given effects (drop shadows, embossing, gradients, bevels) or any other element to create depth. Every detail you see is clear, strong and solid. Nothing is added to make these details look livelier or more real. The layout in flat design is clearly divided, with no overlapping parts.

So what makes flat design more appealing without those effects? It has its own traits that make it easy to read and understand, based on how the design details are arranged in order. Websites are not the only ones that use flat design; mobile apps favor this trend too. On a small screen with only a few buttons, a flat design is very easy to use.

Simple details

Flat design often uses simple elements such as icon and buttons. Designers typically use simple, separate shapes such as circles, squares and rectangles, which may have outlines or rounded corners.

With such simple, separate shapes, flat design lets users interact easily, with a single click. The designer does not have to explain much in the design, but does have to explore, think and select a great deal. So flat design is not simple or easy to do.

Focus on typography

Because the details in flat design are so simple, typography gets special attention. Typeface Typography in flat design is usually plain. The type should be bold and fit the overall design, mostly sans serif fonts, and the text gets straight to the point.

If you have used Windows Phone or Windows 8, you may have noticed the difference in how typography is used in the design. Users get a clear practical benefit: they can see information directly without opening the app.

Focus on color

Color is especially important in flat design and contributes a lot to the success of this style. Other design styles may use only 2-3 colors, while flat design uses 6 to 8. Flat design often uses bright palettes with vivid tones. Colors from the retro trend such as purple, green, blue and orange-pink are common.

Using this many colors lets flat design set up a clear information hierarchy and clearly separate the areas that hold information.

Flat buttons

Flat buttons (also called ghost buttons) have only an outline and a few simple words inside. A flat button creates an easily recognized area to tap or click without breaking the continuity of the overall interface design. At first, ghost buttons were mostly used on sites or software with dark backgrounds (blue, yellow, red); now designers use them on other backgrounds too.

Overcoming the weaknesses of skeuomorphic design

Skeuomorphic is a design style that imitates real objects as closely as possible, using images that evoke real-world things and applying effects that create depth. However, this approach has quite a few drawbacks in UX/UI:

• With so many effects, the interface can be hard to see and follow.
• A lot of space goes to unnecessary decoration. Skeuomorphic design leans heavily on visuals and eye-catching ornament, which makes things harder for designers.
• Creativity is limited because skeuomorphic design copies real-world shapes. Designers do not need to break out of the mold; they focus on making things look as much like the real object as possible. As a result, ideas often repeat.

See more:

• A detailed guide to UX-standard website sizes
• What is the standard image size

Main reasons flat design has grown so strong

3 main reasons flat design has grown so strong.

Simple and intuitive

In this style, designers drop unnecessary details and focus only on the ones that let viewers concentrate, interact and have a good experience.

A responsive interface that works well

Responsive It lets your website display well on every browser and mobile device, from desktop to the screens of mobile devices on different operating systems. The page layout automatically scales to fit the device's resolution and aspect ratio. With only finger gestures on a touch screen, flat design gives a very good experience.

Strong appeal

Because of this appeal, designers trust and use it often, and other designers are influenced to some degree and gradually learn to build flat design for their own websites. In particular, skeuomorphic design has more and more weaknesses, which has made it outdated and let flat design take its place.

The role of flat design

The flat design trend brings many benefits today, such as: users get a better web experience, images display well, marketing and SEO. The characteristics of flat design also save storage space, speed up loading and make things convenient for users.

Flat design is widely used on websites such as Google+, Microsoft, Apple and other technology and engineering sites.

Windows 8 users are very familiar with flat interfaces, because that operating system uses only flat design. A flat interface keeps a website from being overloaded with unnecessary ads and graphics. This style also produces very few errors compared with traditional UI design.

Pros and cons of flat design

Advantages

• Because it does not use visual effects such as drop shadows and embossing (which can cause compatibility problems across browsers), flat design has fewer errors than UI design done the traditional way.
• Flat design focuses more on color because it directly affects customers' emotions. This helps raise the conversion rate and improve results in business.
• A flat interface is usually simple and does not go deep into detail, yet users still feel comfortable with a layout that is tidy and refined.

Disadvantages

• Flat design is seen as a challenge for designers, because they have to think about how to produce something simple that is still unique and distinctive.
• Visual effects are the main element, so it also makes it hard for designers to hide imperfections in the design.

We hope the information shared in this article gives you a solid overview of flat design which has been popular lately. From here you can understand the characteristics of this design style and apply it successfully in your own designs.