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Future Aesthetics

ui-ux-design
Another post on skeuomorphic
vs flat design in 2016?

Say it isn’t so.  “It isn’t so.”  Better?

Design has an impact when following the fundamentals of form meeting function and the specifics that come with the specific medium a design is created for. In 2013 there began the debate of realistic skeuomorphism versus flat design.

Each style has been taken to the Nth degree. The arguments of style becoming a local conclusion are forgone. Style is fashion. After flat design a mix of skeuomorphism will return to be in vogue. With the ever increasing horsepower of our various devices the flattening of designs is no longer needed to save bandwidth. During the early days of the web the reduction of interface elements and the complexity of design would have best fit the slow connection speeds of the world wide web’s beginnings. But showing depth, texture, shadows differentiated each brand from another.

Today, design is high art. Restraint is fashionable. Back in the 90s, the ubiquity of the BlackBerry created the widespread use of black and white line art icons that resembled their real-world counterparts. As Apple took over, the same elements were used except their aesthetics were beveled, textured, and made to feel realistic.

Fashion has made aesthetics a commodity of convention. Users are going to understand a familiar but irrational interface faster than the logical but unfamiliar.

As tastes change, the media savvy companies hold sway. If the designers at fashionable technology companies such as Apple decide drop shadows need to make a come back, fashion will follow like the newest hand bag craze.

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