What’s Really Behind Flat Design?

I’m sure, in the last couple months, you have heard about the new “Flat Design” – the revolutionary change in website design and development. It’s simpler. It’s cleaner. It’s to the point. A good example of this is the new icon design collection for Mac OSX. The safari icon is now stripped of all its details, embracing two dimensional features while still maintaining its style and form. But what has caused this trending change in design? And, more importantly, how will it affect us?

Find out why your logo doesn’t have to be big.

Coming from an era of Skeuomorphism, attempting to digitally replicate real world objects on a screen, we have been so focused on making sure light hits an object perfectly or having a shadow angled just right to ensure that it looks three dimensional and realistic. This began years ago to encourage the adoption of the Internet. Designers were taught to make every button, link or object look as real as possible in order to properly navigate a viewer through the site content.

Learn all about the importance of rising above the fold and why the F shape reading pattern is bad for your website.

However, today, people have fully accepted the concept and now use the Internet everywhere and anywhere – their computers, their laptop, their mobile devices, each with different size screens and site requirements. This revolutionary flat design concept has brought designers back to the basics and focusing on what truly matters to the viewer – the content and user experience. It doesn’t matter how many flashy images you have, or “popping” buttons, the user is viewing the site to uncover the content within it, not to see the all the crazy effects you can add.

How does website design affect SEO?

By being stripped of all added design elements like gradients, shadows, bevels, and 3D effects, a flat design is scalable, responsive and suitable for almost every browser. This new concept of simplicity and minimalism has opened the door for designers to truly display their creative abilities and again, focus on the most important aspects of a site, the content and user experience.

Learn more about some of the different website design tactics.

Image Source: http://www.awwwards.com/gallery/8225/flat-design-an-in-depthlook

---