Flat design is a style of visual communication that rose to popularity in the early 2010s as an almost necessary response to technological advancement. Used predominantly within a screen-based environment, the minimalistic attributes and wide use of block colour create an effective visual solution for a low-resolution context.
As a style, flat design can trace its roots to earlier artistic periods. In particular, the Swiss Modernist / minimalist movement of the 1950s and 1960s as well as that of Russian Constructivism and the Bauhaus. These periods of art and design are easily identified by strong use of colour, shape and an adherence to underlying structural grid systems.
Whilst not abstract in intention, the removal of superfluous visual information in flat design places emphasis on shape and line and the relationship that exists between each item. This is in contrast to 3D design and skeuomorphism which both seek to use generous embellishment to produce lifelike representations. Flat design seeks to reduce an image to only what is essential.
As a visual language, flat design is adaptable and flexible creating strong compatibility with the needs of responsive design and user experience environments. Whilst it originally received criticism as being generic or lacking depth, this was addressed in what is referred to as Flat Design 2.0, or Material Design. The flexibility and adaptability remains, but with greater detailing and texturing applied, providing the viewer with more intuitive and familiar attributes.
Whilst not formally recognised as an artistic movement, Material Design has still been identified as a key graphic design style with organisations such as Google even developing a style guide for web best practice, based on it.
As a style of design, I feel that this is most appropriate to act as a basis for this assessment’s Information Graphic’s visual language. Like an infographic, the intention of flat / material design is to increase accessibility through the simplifying and clarifying of complex information.
Some 50 years earlier, the underlying principles of flat design can be seen in the work of Emil Ruder
Flat 2.0 sought to address some of the limitations of the original flat design style
I propose a combination of flat / material design with a minimalist approach as the visual style of Assessment One’s information graphic design.
DSGN6027 Design Contexts 