Flat Design is undoubtedly the graphic style of the moment, its strong rise has also been conditioned by the surge of mobile, in fact it lends itself perfectly to responsive design techniques, without forgetting that it represents an economical style, being simple and quick to reproduce as it presents minimalist elements without elaborate artifacts.
This trend is spreading, day by day, more and more graphic designers are using particular fonts to design different interfaces, almost all of them designed to automatically adapt to a screen with a reduced size, typical of a smartphone or a tablet, in addition, this trend has now paved the way for the creation of sites that are easier for users to understand but also simpler to implement, after all, there is a tendency to “eliminate the superfluous“. The success of the Flat is also due in part to the advent of mobile devices with Retina Displays, now installed on all major devices that give screens a realistic effect, designed to reproduce that typical of printed paper. It is from these principles that the evolution of the Flat design style begins, moreover paving the way for the use of numerous typographic styles, to the delight of designers.
With Flat Design we bring order to complexity
With Flat design the first thing in evidence is the leading role played by the font, the most commonly used fonts being those defined as Sans Serif (Helvetica, Futura or Frutiger for example), which leave no room for frills or particular calligraphic effects, thus being much easier to read. In a graphic design approach for the web if you choose a Flat style, you will have the opportunity to use flat, well-defined elements, avoiding using three-dimensional or gradient elements, fashionable until recently. The color itself turns out to be very important, soft and desaturated colors are preferred, the choice very often falls on the use of bright hues on a dark or light background. Minimal icons are, along with the font, the true hallmark of flat design for the web. They are considered to have a high communicative impact and to be “user friendly.” The main purpose of this type of graphic style is to present information clearly and cleanly, with the goal of making it better understood. The advice I would give is simply to be careful not to blur into a spasmodic search to make everything forcibly “flat,” very often oversimplifying can lead to unintuitive or overly confusing interfaces where nothing is in evidence. Never make the user miss visual references, very often these help in understanding and secure him or her from a kind of frustration resulting from searching for elements of interaction (fundamental in modern web design conception).
Remember usability always comes first!
