Lucian Marin
Black and white
Designers are getting tired of “flat design” trend. What’s next? I would say black and white because “flat” became a colour mess.
We solve problems by getting rid of issues. The issue with “flat design” is insane colour schemes. Remember when iOS 7 was announced? We got rainbows over rainbows directly from the world’s most famous designer, Jonny Ive himself. In the recent update of iOS, Apple reconsidered those gradients for FaceTime and Phone icons.
Why would anyone choose “black and white” over “flat” trend?
For companies, designers and fashion settlers things like even better typography, crisper icons, more subtle details can’t be ignored. Colour photography stands from the backgrounds, while black and white photography blends right in. In the end blacks, whites and greys are more careful considered than ever before. The new design of Calvin Klein is a step in the right direction, but it isn’t yet a true black and white design. The sweet spot would be the Karl Lagerfeld of visual design.
What’s going to happen with colours?
Firstly, using colours for layout is always a bad idea from the start. People tend to think that colours are used for actions. People choose to touch coloured headers on iOS apps even if they aren’t actionable. I think that keeping a sane check on colours is a good idea in itself. Red will still be used for delete buttons, green and blue will still be acceptable as long as they convey a strict and specific action.
I was one of the first designer that embraced the minimalistic design trends. Firstly with The Journalist, then my site got lots of redesigns over the years, then in 2012 I settled with a design name Project 2022 that featured shades of greys with two popping colours: teal and yellow. I think that keeping the same ingredients while getting rid of colours made the design much deeper than I imagined.