Flat Design and Minimalism – Mere Trend or the Future of Web Designing?

With web designing placing its footsteps on recovering minimalism design, I often get wondered if this is just a passing trend or a presage of the web future. The notion that aesthetics play a lesser important part in web development and content is the main player is extending its branches. I won’t say content is anything less significant as it is undoubtedly the central player but website can’t stand without a proper design. People get engaged in the website or save them as a bookmark for further read if aesthetics are eye-catching and interest boiling.

Flat design, swapping the overly decorated and embellished looks to audacious simplicity, has taken the widest jump from one extreme to another. And this is not limited to newly developed websites but many established and big names have also played their dice turning to this refined and subtle way of digital designing.

What is minimalist/flat design?

It is explained pretty much by the name itself – the design having flat dimensions and lacking the embellishments such as overly decorated texts, animations, gradients, embossing and heavily done graphics. All the elements are brittle and flat by choice. The effort taking basics in traditional websites are transformed to plain and uninspiring backgrounds. But, I guess I am wrong saying uninspiring as there are plenty of benefits added to them and clean ground basics are being preferred over visual realism.

What makes it effective?

Researching a lot on the new fashion of flat designing I have concluded that the key benefit of applying this change is that it is user friendly. I don’t think anything else is more important than this that the users like it. Minimalism brings most important content to the forefront and carries no distractions for the user. An effective flat design represents the view which is informative, comprehensive and time savvy for the user. The best part is there is no confusion involved.

Then the ultimate motto of the website of any business – increasing traffic and sales – is accomplished. How? As I explained above, the flat design has no embellishments; hence no design clashes in different interfaces. The design on mobile devices gets more effective for it is clean and without complications. This makes flat designing a key factor in brand marketing.

Are you thinking about the cost and time? The minimalism is cost effective as there is no need of complex elements but it is more creative in nature, since the finest is developed from limited fundamentals. The thinking process and refinement might take a good amount of time. The problem every designer faces when working on flat design is that either they seem to be uninteresting or incomplete every time. Numerous numbers of things are taken into consideration before settling on the final design.

Why future of digital designing?

• Responsive web designing is the door to maximized success. Reaching most number of users is kind of obvious and necessary for businesses. Flat design is easily optimized for computers, mobiles, TV and other technologies
• Typography and content is the future of websites. Minimalism allows us to remove unnecessary elements and decoration keeping center on clear layouts, app-style interface, typography and most important simplicity. Get yourself prepared to see a lot of empty spaces and single color icons on future layouts.
• The content is going to reach plenty more places like wearable devices, in-vehicle gimmicks, in kitchen equipments, interactive TVs and list is not small. It is not feasible to create new content for every new platform. The catch is to design around the content and not content around the deign
• It is easier to apply scalable vector approach with flat design. The text must be accessible and clear in screens of all pixel aspect ratio. It is being practiced using ideas, techniques and web standards.
• It will be acceptable by all if I say, the coming age is not going to involve around browsers but the applications. An application for every service can be forecasted. Minimalist designing is not only the future, but is also the need.

Author Bio:

Kaylee Martin works as Web Developer see author’s website. She loves to write about new technologies and Web related topics. She loves to read novels and hanging out to internet.