The Smartphone Face Lift: Is Apple’s Design Too Trendy?

Posted on October 27, 2013 at 1:35 pm

A quick glance between the iPhone’s new iOS 7 and its predecessor will show you two troubling trends in graphic design:

Flat and easy is hot.
Dimension and dynamic seriously isn’t.

The Smartphone Face Lift: Is Apples Design Too Trendy?

Flat Design and iOS 7: A Tale of Misuse

The flat and bright icons of iOS 7 are a harbinger of a brand new trend in graphic design called “Flat Design.” Flat Design makes a speciality of simplicity and high contrast colors in two dimensions. The issue with iOS 7 isn’t that it uses flat design; it’s that it uses it poorly. One example of serious flat icons appears within the iOS 6 “Game Center” icon:

The Smartphone Face Lift: Is Apples Design Too Trendy?

The iOS 6 version is sublime and it provides a true sense of the variability of games play contained in the app: board (intelligent and quiet), sports (loud and fun), fantasy (space and beyond) and classic (fun and simple to be informed). But in iOS 7, you get multi-colored bubbles. The icon is obscure and says absolutely nothing about what you could anticipate finding within the “Game Center.” Its only purpose is to peer young and stylish.

The Smartphone Face Lift: Is Apples Design Too Trendy? Photo courtesy of vaccinesandevolution.blogspot.com

So What’s the difficulty?

I think the underlying problem with iOS 7 is that it misunderstands why Flat Design is trending in 2013, and it’s something i discussed in regards to the “Game Center” icon. Flat Design is fashionable because it’s well done, and it’s well done because it’s elegant. Trendy doesn’t mean childish as Apple seems to think, and style combines what’s hot with what’s professional.

Creative Market: Icons for the Win

The Smartphone Face Lift: Is Apples Design Too Trendy?

This icon set from Creative Market is a smart example of Flat Design done well. These icons are fun; they’re drawn within the variety of children’s illustrations that keeps them trendy, but they pack an informational punch that keeps them professional.

Parting Thoughts

While smart gadgets and internet culture are clearly injecting fun and “what’s hot” into the pro market, i must question if it’s an honest thing. Maybe it’s just my nostalgia for the category of commercial suits and briefcases, but i believe the trends ought to stay become independent from the business world. In the midst of this text, I inserted a meme — the trademark humor of popular internet culture. Does the modern joke make me seem less or more professional? Is it alright to mix business with pleasure? Is trending graphic design getting too hip for the working world? What do you watched?