What is flat design?
Flat design is a minimalistic design approach that emphasises usability. It features clean, open space, crisp edges, bright colours and two-dimensional illustrations. Flat design is all about crisp shapes, (both) sober and bright colors, and scalable illustrations. Even the fonts used in flat design are mostly sans-serif. Thai Food Menu Design
The Origins of Flat Design
Obviously, flat design hasn’t appeared out of thin air. Its roots are usually set in Swiss style which historians of design sphere find its direct ancestor. 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 release of Microsoft’s Metro design language and Windows 8 in 2011 was particularly influential in popularizing flat design. Microsoft’s design documentation referred to its new style as "authentically digital" — a phrase that neatly captures the appeal of flat design for many designers. Unlike skeuomorphic design, flat design was seen as a way to explore the digital medium without trying to reproduce the appearance of the physical world.
The flattening of Apple’s homepage provides a useful benchmark for the growth of the trend’s popularity. Skeuomorphism and realism had long been trademarks of Apple design, and its homepage resisted the flat trend until around 2013. Steakhouse Menu Design Templates
Benefits of Flat Design
While a digital user interface can be beautifully shaded with gradients and rounded corners, there's something a little more honest about flat design, an aesthetic that eliminates drop shadows and other attempts to create a sense of three-dimensional physicality.
Flat design is easy to identify when you spot it; it is often described as clean, and it incorporates straight, crisp edges, bright colors, and 2D illustrations (hence, the name “flat”). Not only is flat design appealing to the eye and easy to read, it also is known for its emphasis on usability and user-friendliness, and it is a great choice for anyone who wants their website to be easy to use for all of its visitors.
Tips to make a Flat Design
Whether it’s an illustration for website, an info-graphic piece, an icon set or brand key visual, here are my 5 main tips that will help you to make it right.
1. Keep it simple and balanced
2. Add white space
3. Use geometry
4. Don’t be afraid to implement bright colors
5. Apply additional details
Flat design is the design trend prevailing across web and mobile space, presently. Although best known for improving user experience, flat design has various other benefits to offer: better readability, reduced page-load time, seo advantage, etc.