I don’t think the underlying reason is what year I turned fifteen, but Flat can go fuck itself. Just awful usability all around. Even Windows 95 managed relief shading, and it could do that shit in sixteen colors. White on white with white dividers is the nonsense you put in movies.
It was actually the 1920s(art nouveau)
Flat design is clinical depression in graphical form, a reflection of the contemporary existential/mental health crisis. It’s a societal cry for help, basically.
Seems more a rejects of the flamboyance of the prior two generation which will certainly give it a different feel. It absolutely felt fresh at the time of inception.
I’m ready for post-flat design.
I’d be so happy for a desktop window manager that didn’t make all of the window borders grey-on-grey, and distinguish the active window by making the title text slightly-darker grey.
Or smartphones and high pixel density displays became the norm, and raster graphics don’t look good or scale well on them. Simple vector graphics are crisper on your screen, can be rendered via things like CSS, and can more easily scale to different resolutions and dimensions.
Apple’s skeuomorphic phase overlapped the Retina display era, though, so I don’t buy that explanation. Also, it’s nothing to do with raster vs. vector. The photos that we take with phone cameras are raster graphics, for example. They look great, and it’s because they’re high-resolution. High-res raster UI elements would look great, except then the versatile manipulation by CSS would not be possible. Vector graphics are very good at that.
But here’s the thing: Complex vector graphics exist, too. There were some pretty fancy PostScript graphics even back in the early 1990’s. With all the pixels that we have now, we could have good design instead of flat, if the developers bothered. But it seems we’ve internalized the feeling that we’re not worth the effort, aesthetics and color aren’t interesting, and life is a joyless slog. Which sounds and awful lot like clinical depression…
(Incidentally, odd that emoji aren’t flat design.)
(Incidentally, odd that emoji aren’t flat design.)
That actually depends on browser, app or OS that’s doing the render. Apple and Whatsapp use the same design, Android uses a slightly different one, Discord and Microsoft both use flat designs, but for Win11 it’s a different set
Interesting! I see what you mean, but while looking up Win11 emoji, I found this article from Microsoft about adding 3D design elements based on customer feedback. And, indeed, on my work computer (23H2), they’re not-quite-flat anymore.
Peak design was late 90s and 2000s, where you got to see the new crazy designs of a new era while 80s design still existed all around you prevalently. That fusion is peak nostalgia for me.
This might as well ask, “When were you young and broke and wanted everything you saw in a commercial and then started collecting ridiculous amounts of nostalgia product as soon as you had even a crumb of disposable income.”
Thankfully I didn’t fall for that nonsense.
: reclines on throne made entirely of first gen Zunes and Sidekick phones:
I grew up in the 90s but I actually quite prefer aero design, idk, everything just felt so new and modern
Late 90s decided that everyone had to dress up in silver
Aero looks futuristic and sleek.
Gaming hasn’t really bloomed as much as it had in the 2000s
The next generation of design is already taking shape. It’s a simplistic skewmorphic design, where it looks like the logo has been made out of clay. Look at the new Reddit and Android logo.
So basically IOS’s design language prior to IOS 7
I was remarking the other day about how much character the main menus have on the Wii and Wii U, while the Switch is dead and lifeless
Flat design definitely looks the cleanest, most simple and pleasing to the eye.
I’d say PS2 belongs in flat design, even if it falls outside the dates they think: its design language was ahead of its time
And the PS5 isn’t really flat design, especially compared to the current Xbox.
Y2K is my number one. Memphis on the second place, frutiger aero on third. Flat design is on the last place because it sucks.
I like flat design.
I feel like everyone here just prefers the design they grew up with.
Yeah, the 90s are in style right now. A few years ago, we were all cringing st the styles we wore/had in the 90s. Now it’s hip. In a few years, the early 2000s will be back in style, and everyone will think the 90s is tacky again.
I’m a big fan of flat design, too. To be fair, I basically loved every style in its time. Regardless, I like flat.
Maybe that’s the point of the post. OP wants to know the average age of Lemmits
