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I have a deep rooted issue with design and designers. In 90’s, skeuomorphic trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Web 2.0 design elements

I have a deep rooted issue with design and designers. In 90’s, skeuomorphic trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Web 2.0 design elements were springing up, taking advantage of css; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole Material design boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by Bootstrap. Color themes and palettes were very popular. Cookie-cut banners, slideshows, carousels, headers, etc. Post bootstrap world saw some radical shift in small circles: monospaced fonts, brutalism, vintage homage and low-res shenanigans whilst the mainstream design kept on drinking the material koolaid up until 2016. Boom comes in Stripe with sleek blue-purple gradients, smooth animations, Bumla-lizing the entire fucking internet. It is 2019 and every new Saas service looks like Stripe, following trends like a mindless herd. The rest unfortunate (or unskilled to match Stripe standards) are still catching up with single page scrolling websites with full-width banners, stupid jumbotrons and loud obnoxious typography. Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have Univers on a grunge band poster. For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. That’s timelessness (or cynically put, blandness). He exemplified great understanding of contrast, scale and hierarchy in design to convey information. I recently watched Dieter Rams’ documentary and he is just completely disappointed by majority of design in the world. I am not a designer but I feel the same way. Rams’ design will never be “outdated” because his principles of design weren’t based on trends. Let’s go Dark Themes! Also, next year is the death of jumbotrons. Mark my words.

chrisweekly 7y ago
I hear you, but I also think it might be a bit myopic to focus too much on aesthetics / visual trends, when the primary value provided by a thorough design system like Material is its coherence and consistency. Building UI on such a foundation can help to prevent some of the unjustifiable, trendy or arbitrary decisions that inevitably arise when there's no underlying system at all.
- spectramax 7y ago
  I agree, frameworks provide a consistent basis to build and retain the same coherent aesthetic + behavior. iOS design docs, Material.io, Brand guidelines, etc... are all valuable. My rant is rather a lofty take on the entire culture of design. I had to let it out. :-)
keyle 7y ago
You've highlighted all very well. The reason I posted these guidelines though is because I found they at least reasoned really well about it. Their guidelines follow a logic that's hard to deny. And OLED surprisingly saves a lot of power on Dark Mode, so it's kind of our duty to follow suit. The saddest part of the (pseudo-)loss of the skeuomorphic design was the fact that many very talented designers found themselves underused, tweaking gradients, while their icon design was an art.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pen2l 7y ago
> It is 2019 and every new Saas service looks like Stripe, following trends like a mindless herd. Huh, really? I'm still seeing Bootstrap everywhere. I wish I was seeing Stripe everywhere. Can you give some examples of Stripe-inspired design? I'm curious to see some examples of execution of that.
- spectramax 7y ago
  OpenAI.com, Ghost.org comes to mind. "Is it just me or do all new tech websites look like stripe?" https://www.designernews.co/stories/94103-is-it-just-me-or-do-all-new-tech-websites-look-like-stripe https://www.designernews.co/stories/94103-is-it-just-me-or-d... Here is a quick run down: https://www.pages.xyz/ https://www.pages.xyz/
dpau 7y ago
Although I really dislike the look of Material (especially when used on websites), design systems like it allow us to create consistent user experiences across applications. They might not be ground-breaking in terms of the history of graphic design, but we care more about usability and accessibility. UI design is not progressing in Hegelian fashion towards a utopic ideal, but rather it is continuously adapting to new formats, devices, and environments. Much of design is concerned as much with limitations as it is possibilities. (Anyone remember 256-color web-safe palettes?) I'm not entirely sure what you are not happy with in modern design- that it is not static? The constant exploration of design possibilities on new platforms, from phones to VR, seems quite necessary and important to me...
- reaperducer 7y ago
  allow us to create consistent user experiences across applications The problem is that they are consistently bad. Web design has stagnated because of Material. There's little innovation going on because Material is "good enough" and "everyone else is doing it." That breeds mediocrity, not advancement.
  - acct1771 7y ago
    For breathing life into outdated industries, Material is more than "good enough". For lack of better (less charged) phrasing, it's revolutionary.
- huehehue 7y ago
  What tickles me is that Google's designs (and re-designs) are so wildly inconsistent between products that any benefit of a unified design system is negated. Maybe it's too optimistic to expect universal consistency for a company or Google's size anyway. Opinion: I also find that, while each Material component seems intuitive in isolation, systems layering many if them together usually end up very difficult to use.
  - sonnyblarney 7y ago
    Google's products don't seem to have any kind of consistency whatsoever, it seems it's rather a function of their culture. The designers I guess have more influence in some areas than others. I cannot find my way around YouTube creator after all these years.
sbr464 7y ago
Swiss/International Style Grunge/Punk Posters: https://www.swissted.com/ https://www.swissted.com/
- spectramax 7y ago
  Wow, Josef Muller-Brockmann and the rest of the 60's swiss clan is rolling in their graves. Very cool. In 2025, we will see a resurgence of GNU.org style websites. Times New Roman fonts, no css only tables, <3kb markup sites. Baskerville is going to make a huge comeback! Most code will be in Computer-Modern fonts and dot matrix printers will be prized on eBay. Future is gonna be fricking amazing! We are going to have APOD style posters!
  - sbr464 7y ago
    I feel like we would get along. I keep a Dieter Rams and Adrien Frutiger book next to my keyboard, and also gladly own a dot matrix printer, for nostalgic reasons, (with fresh ink and a box of paper, drivers installed, ready to use at any time). Edit, photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/leumkzmi0xzvuy7/AAB3V76Y4OSSJQ9nCheAdp4_a?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/leumkzmi0xzvuy7/AAB3V76Y4OSSJQ9nC...
    - spectramax 7y ago
      Super cool! If you want more suggestions, I have hundreds of Design books, my email is on HN profile.
  - acct1771 7y ago
    The reasons we'll revert to low bandwidth sites/files won't be amazing, though (decentralized meshnets = freedom).
- KON_Air 7y ago
  I don't find these things really work as well as a real misaligned offset printer.
reaperducer 7y ago
I'm just not a fan of Material. I've tried to like it, but it just won't stick. I know a lot of people think Material=Professional. But I think Material looks more like a small business using a drag-and-drop home page builder. Yes, that goes for the Android interface, too. I never understood the hatred for skeuomorphism. It's intuitive. It's pretty. It's colorful. It's artistic. A bunch of stacked squares isn't any of those things. Fortunately, I still have a launch day iPhone that I occasionally use for music, and it can't be "upgraded" out of its skeuomorphic splendor.
- afiori 7y ago
  IMO, when well done, Material design looks like skeuomorphism for movement. That is probably correlated with my taste for minimalist/stylized animation/graphics. Arguably often it appears just low effort, empty and forgettable.
ipsum2 7y ago
It seems like you know a lot about design, so what's wrong with Stripe-styled websites? I'm a big fan of their design. Also, what does "Bumla-lizing" mean? When I Google it, I get this comment.
- spectramax 7y ago
  I was referring to Bulma CSS framework: https://bulma.io/ https://bulma.io/
- alaskamiller 7y ago
  He thinks homogenization is bad. You're a big fan of a design that's now copied over and over again, at digital agencies, it's a default client ask. They see x and assume x is expensive and wants x, then thousands of Indian devs and designers spend their man hours to replicate it, therefore we further pollute the internet with the same regurgitation of perceived good taste. It's like saying you like a pop song that broke through, it's okay to like a pop song. But then you have to live through a dearth of similar pop songs over and over again for awhile. He also made a typo, he meant Bulma CSS.
  - lessclue 7y ago
    Homogenization is not limited to software UI design. Consumer electronics and appliances, retail fashion etc. are globally homogenized. That's just how the world works.
Zak 7y ago
While the other trends you're mentioning are primarily aesthetic, dark themes have a significant ergonomic motivation in that they allow sufficient contrast at much lower luminance. I've long thought pervasive dark themes were overdue given smartphones greatly increasing the number of users looking at screens in environments not resembling brightly-lit offices. They also save power on OLED as the guidelines and other commenters have mentioned.
- spectramax 7y ago
  Also, how easy they are on the eyes - most popular IDE themes tend to be dark. My rant was venting about "trends" in aesthetics. When trends emerge due to underlying technical reason (DPI/resolution, power savings, etc.) they add a tremendous value. I remember writing php backend to process 1x and 2x images when Retina screens had just released in 2012. That led to responsive images and many other advancements on the Desktop UI side - all good things.
cam_l 7y ago
I love it when people make authoritative statements about design. Because everyone has an opinion about design, it must mean everyone is expert. Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends, and trends which very much fell or of favour for twenty or thirty years. The fact that they are on trend again does not invalidate that. Nor does the fact that his designs in particular are remembered and copied because he was one of the best of the era. He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.) To suggest that graphic design is solved, is like saying a radio is solved. Technological changes coincide with changes in human understanding, taste, response and feedback. And then to use Dieter Rams as an example, because presumably you like his aesthetic, is to not understand design at all. Or certainly not his practice of it. On the other hand, i totally think someone could start a Rams framework (if it hasn't already been done). An unholy mixture of skeumorphic dials and material backgrounds. It could be a beautiful abomination.
- spectramax 7y ago
  "Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends" - based on what observation? The trend at the time Mid-Century design with some influence from 30 year old Bauhaus movement. "He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.)" - I agree, and that is my take as well. "To suggest that graphic design is solved, is like saying a radio is solved. Technological changes coincide with changes in human understanding, taste, response and feedback." - I think I regret using the word "solved" (hence the quote marks), I think the correct take on this is that there are no major gaps to fill in International style. Vignelli, Paul Rand, Unimark International, Eliot Noyes, and countless others - they all explored the contours of design but only to realize that principles of International style serve almost every purpose and will continue to do so in future - with new technology, the principles don't change. Its application changes. Even today, design houses such as C&G&H continues to excel whist Pentagram is flopping around in New York trends. Paula Sher is an absolute disaster (See LOC redesign by Pentagram). I don't mind good, well thought out constructive criticism, I would appreciate some more insight into your claims. "I love it when people make authoritative statements about design. Because everyone has an opinion about design, it must mean everyone is expert." is not the tone I'd like to see on HN. I shall also add that my initial comment was rather tongue-in-cheek rant, I should have been more objective and sound. :-)
tlrobinson 7y ago
In other words: get off my lawn. Seriously though, I like the Swiss/International aesthetic, are there any CSS frameworks / design systems / whatever that implement it?
- spectramax 7y ago
  http://tachyons.io http://tachyons.io comes to mind.
  - vector_spaces 7y ago
    http://tachyons.io/docs/themes/skins/ http://tachyons.io/docs/themes/skins/ Love this page in their docs. I constantly refer to it when I need to think about colors even in non-web/technical endeavors
davidivadavid 7y ago
Traditional graphic design cannot be "solved" and will always be ruled by more or less cyclical trends because graphic design is used (among other things) as a differentiating branding element for marketing and communication. And you can't differentiate a product when everyone has the same branding. Someone starts standing out. People start copying them. And then a new trend emerges, ad infinitum. Industrial design is a different question, but nothing is ever "pure" industrial design. The reason you think Rams's designs won't ever be outdated is down to personal taste and what part of the cycle we're in. Apple dominates the design zeitgeist and thus Rams is fashionable. That too will fade, notwithstanding the validity of his design principles.
- spectramax 7y ago
  Good point about the differentiating factor in branding. I think about design in same way, whether its web design, garden design or industrial design. For example, similar trends have picked up in Cars. RGB mood lighting - everyone is adding it now without fundamentally considering its utilitarian value. Or even if they realize it is "decoration", market forces and consumer choices are obliging car manufacturers to install RGB interior lighting. Same thing with brake light bars that span the entire width of the car. Even 2020 Porsche 911 had to add one!
  - rypskar 7y ago
    At least the RGB interior lighting is better than the "lets have all instruments in blue to ruin night-vision" trend
  - davidivadavid 7y ago
    Oh, to be sure, there are thoughtless design decisions that are made. Note that that kind of trend chasing to get to feature parity is often just bad product management rather than design per se.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      I wish there was more information about design in regimented and disciplined fields such as Aviation where marketing is deprioritized and utilitarianism, pragmatism and functionalism takes precedence. Cockpit design, radar screen layout, nuclear power plant control panels, etc are fascinating areas of design where lives are at stake. All the fluff in consumer design takes a back seat.
_pmf_ 7y ago
They need to keep things moving to keep their employment; there really is not much more to it. As to why Google can not find more pressing things for them to work on, I don't know.
hbosch 7y ago
I have a deep rooted issue with development and developers. In 90’s, ActionScript trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Flash websites were springing up, taking advantage of animations and sound; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole ES6 boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by JavaScript frameworks. Frontend libraries were very popular. Cookie-cut DOM abstraction, one-page apps, launchpad dependencies, etc. Post JavaScript world saw some radical shift in small circles: Elm, Crystal, demos and hacked shenanigans whilst the mainstream development kept on drinking the JavaScript koolaid up until forever. Traditional development has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, BASIC or C for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have FORTRAN on a modern website. For the curious, google some books by Brian W Kernighan - they still appear to be relevant in 2019. That’s timelessness. __ In all seriousness, it's a mistake to say that 1 style -- The International/Swiss Style -- can solve all of design's needs. You are purposely forgetting that design relies heavily on taste. Not the designer's taste, but the customer's taste. When I go shopping for organic shampoo, I have an idea of what "organic shampoo packaging" looks like. It's beige, probably has a plant on it, etc. Tastes change, and they change constantly and organically. Changing tastes are a moving target for designers to hit, or if they're lucky they can arrive there early. Also, it's a sign of "freshness" to update your design from time to time. People expect things to update and "get better", both visually and functionally. Similar to fashion, design does not always have to be rationale and objectively beautiful -- it just has to suit it's customer's tastes.
- pjc50 7y ago
  I've seen unironic versions of your parody argument posted right here, especially when someone posts an Electron app.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Well, s/BASIC/Lisp/ in that comment, and the critique is spot-on.
- spectramax 7y ago
  I have to admit, this made me laugh more than I’m willing to admit. It is a mistake to equate software development with graphic design. To compare C with International Style sounds promising on the surface, rings all kinds of bells but your analogy breaks down as follows. Machine code > ASM > C > Java > Python > Django framework > Web apps > Saas. This is a hierarchical abstraction. So comparing C to JavaScript is comparing different abstraction layers. Writing C is not suitable for web apps so much as designing a font from scratch to put a webpage together is not a productive use of your time. International Style is not a lower abstraction or “building” block for design. It is a framework of principles.
Fnoord 7y ago
> Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have Univers on a grunge band poster. For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. A documentary touching that subject is Helvetica [1]. It is about the Helvetica font. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/
Randomswiss 7y ago
I agree and I don't think following Swiss/international design "guidelines" would constraint designers about creativity
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286970
kristianc 7y ago
> Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. This makes about as much sense as saying music was ‘solved’ by Radiohead or Nirvana. Trends change as culture and tastes change. People deride ‘hipsterism’ but without them we would all be drinking lousy beer, eating crappy burgers and drinking low quality coffee. Trends change, challenge what’s gone before and make things nicer.
atoav 7y ago
Beeing a designer is not easy. Other than in programming or e.g. in sound mixing, everybody has (strong) opinions on design. Ever met a boss who came into the room looked at you code and told you to use library x instead of the thing you used the past three weeks? Stuff like this only happens to designers, because everybody believes they can judge design. The client that makes a design in MSWord and wants you to do exactly that still exists — why they hired you when they already have it remains a mystery. On top of that you have so many free templates and drag and drop website designers, as a designer you can’t really afford making good design unless your customer is a multinational company, because customers will always compare you with the cheap online service. This means most designers are basically forced to use something fast, that looks halfway decent by economic reasons. Of course there are always those who really think what they do is great, but I don’t think they are in the majority. That beeing said, I love the interfaces of old professional electronic gear (and lately I have been working in some myself). I don’t think you can transfer that in a good way to the flat screen without adjustments. Let’s not forget the abnominations bad skeuomorphic design produced, every trend will consist of a lot of cheap trash always.
- pault 7y ago
  I started my career as a designer and this is why I migrated to software engineering. If you're a designer, everyone with a pair of eyeballs thinks they know how to do your job. If you're a developer, everyone thinks you're a genius if your code doesn't crash.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >If you're a developer, everyone thinks you're a genius if your code doesn't crash This hurts on a personal level. While it is a very convenient thing if you are a solo developer, it can easily become a pain on a team, where some engineers care about code quality noticeably less than others and non-developers (e.g., PMs) get involved.
    - atoav 7y ago
      He is probably talking about the perception regular customers get of your profession. You could be a graphic design god, unless you really play the role of such god and demand a god's salery, every incompetent middle manager will believe they have more expertice than you, bike shedding all over the place. This rarely ever happens if you are a developer interacting with similar people (e.g. as a freelancer). They think you are some kind of magician. Similar when you are a good audio engineer or something, they will just let you do your thing. The funny thing is: this perception is completely independent of the quality of your work. They will always have something to say – sometimes even stuff that makes sense, but very often just for the sake of it, with no real reason. Everybody thinks they have a good taste and a great eye and what kind of graphics are needed, while in fact often they have none of the above.
nkozyra 7y ago
I'm missing something - Stripe appears a pretty textbook example of Material Design.
harimau777 7y ago
This may just be me being a grumpy old man, but it seems to me that part of the problem might be that most people with the job title "designer" aren't really designers they are artists. What I mean is: my understanding is that design is supposed to be a rigorous discipline based on principles such as color theory, proportions, psychology/culture, and usability. Instead it seems like the focus is on looking pretty and functionality is an afterthought. To be fair, I think you see the same thing with "software engineers". Many don't have any interest in disciplined engineering or the principles of computer science, they just want to write code.
Kiro 7y ago
So you're not a designer but somehow is an authority on the subject? No, you have opinions. Which are just subjective as any designer's opinions.
anoncake 7y ago
> For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. I disagree, it's quite obvious they were designed in the 50s/60s.
- spectramax 7y ago
  Are we looking at the same posters? https://i.imgur.com/BJzS7aw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BJzS7aw.jpg No way you can say this is 50’s, can you? If so, what gives it away?
  - anoncake 7y ago
    They really look like 60's posters. I just included the 50's because some of the posters are actually from the late 50's. In fact, the left one you linked advertises an event happening on "dienstag, 5. mai 1959". The right one seems to be from 1959 too but I'm not sure.
  - hulahoof 7y ago
    The colour palette for me has a bit of a dated feel, although I assume these are scans of the originals and would probably look right at home if freshly printed.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      I think it's the writing too. All-lowercase writing was more common in the 60s and the font[1] is not that common today. [1] https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/castletype/standard/medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/castletype/standard/medium/ according to Whatthefont
  - cphuntington97 7y ago
    It reminds me of Broadway Boogie Woogie which is from the 40s…
gdubs 7y ago
Dark Themes and features like Apple’s Night Shift are accessibility features. People need the option of working at night or in dark rooms (like a film editing bay) without being blasted by bright blue and white light; and they need the text to remain readable without causing eye-strain.
notjustanymike 7y ago
You sound just like a baby boomer complaining about how all music is bad these days. There's no new pattern here: good design, like good music, is remembered while bad design is forgotten. There were repetitive design patterns and lazy emulation ten and twenty years ago, just like there are now, but we don't talk about them much. I personally coded way more table based drop shadows, tickers, and splash screens than I wanted to. Those ideas then, just as now, came from lazy product managers, small budgets, and general mediocrity.
- blitmap 7y ago
  I found his commentary constructive. I didn't realize we had gone through several periods of "this design is the most popular". I think he's expressing that people hop on bandwagons rather than understanding the concepts or disciplines behind the design. Design taken as seriously as architecture.
  - toiletfuneral 7y ago
    No, he’s not expressing that “people jumping on bandwagon” because he literally opens his comment with “I have a problem with designers” specifically. And it’s a strange ignorance to only attribute trendiness to a single discipline.
caprese 7y ago
> google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019 these would make for a kickass site and app designs
dugluak 7y ago
Not everybody gets the luxury to afford a good designer. Frameworks like Bootstrap/Bumla help developers with poor aesthetic sense or simply not having time to deal with design nuances across different browsers a way to deliver better looking applications.

chrisweekly 7y ago

I hear you, but I also think it might be a bit myopic to focus too much on aesthetics / visual trends, when the primary value provided by a thorough design system like Material is its coherence and consistency. Building UI on such a foundation can help to prevent some of the unjustifiable, trendy or arbitrary decisions that inevitably arise when there's no underlying system at all.

spectramax 7y ago
I agree, frameworks provide a consistent basis to build and retain the same coherent aesthetic + behavior. iOS design docs, Material.io, Brand guidelines, etc... are all valuable. My rant is rather a lofty take on the entire culture of design. I had to let it out. :-)

keyle 7y ago

You've highlighted all very well. The reason I posted these guidelines though is because I found they at least reasoned really well about it. Their guidelines follow a logic that's hard to deny. And OLED surprisingly saves a lot of power on Dark Mode, so it's kind of our duty to follow suit. The saddest part of the (pseudo-)loss of the skeuomorphic design was the fact that many very talented designers found themselves underused, tweaking gradients, while their icon design was an art.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pen2l 7y ago

> It is 2019 and every new Saas service looks like Stripe, following trends like a mindless herd. Huh, really? I'm still seeing Bootstrap everywhere. I wish I was seeing Stripe everywhere. Can you give some examples of Stripe-inspired design? I'm curious to see some examples of execution of that.

spectramax 7y ago
OpenAI.com, Ghost.org comes to mind. "Is it just me or do all new tech websites look like stripe?" https://www.designernews.co/stories/94103-is-it-just-me-or-do-all-new-tech-websites-look-like-stripe https://www.designernews.co/stories/94103-is-it-just-me-or-d... Here is a quick run down: https://www.pages.xyz/ https://www.pages.xyz/

dpau 7y ago

Although I really dislike the look of Material (especially when used on websites), design systems like it allow us to create consistent user experiences across applications. They might not be ground-breaking in terms of the history of graphic design, but we care more about usability and accessibility. UI design is not progressing in Hegelian fashion towards a utopic ideal, but rather it is continuously adapting to new formats, devices, and environments. Much of design is concerned as much with limitations as it is possibilities. (Anyone remember 256-color web-safe palettes?) I'm not entirely sure what you are not happy with in modern design- that it is not static? The constant exploration of design possibilities on new platforms, from phones to VR, seems quite necessary and important to me...

reaperducer 7y ago
allow us to create consistent user experiences across applications The problem is that they are consistently bad. Web design has stagnated because of Material. There's little innovation going on because Material is "good enough" and "everyone else is doing it." That breeds mediocrity, not advancement.
- acct1771 7y ago
  For breathing life into outdated industries, Material is more than "good enough". For lack of better (less charged) phrasing, it's revolutionary.
huehehue 7y ago
What tickles me is that Google's designs (and re-designs) are so wildly inconsistent between products that any benefit of a unified design system is negated. Maybe it's too optimistic to expect universal consistency for a company or Google's size anyway. Opinion: I also find that, while each Material component seems intuitive in isolation, systems layering many if them together usually end up very difficult to use.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  Google's products don't seem to have any kind of consistency whatsoever, it seems it's rather a function of their culture. The designers I guess have more influence in some areas than others. I cannot find my way around YouTube creator after all these years.

sbr464 7y ago

Swiss/International Style Grunge/Punk Posters: https://www.swissted.com/ https://www.swissted.com/

spectramax 7y ago
Wow, Josef Muller-Brockmann and the rest of the 60's swiss clan is rolling in their graves. Very cool. In 2025, we will see a resurgence of GNU.org style websites. Times New Roman fonts, no css only tables, <3kb markup sites. Baskerville is going to make a huge comeback! Most code will be in Computer-Modern fonts and dot matrix printers will be prized on eBay. Future is gonna be fricking amazing! We are going to have APOD style posters!
- sbr464 7y ago
  I feel like we would get along. I keep a Dieter Rams and Adrien Frutiger book next to my keyboard, and also gladly own a dot matrix printer, for nostalgic reasons, (with fresh ink and a box of paper, drivers installed, ready to use at any time). Edit, photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/leumkzmi0xzvuy7/AAB3V76Y4OSSJQ9nCheAdp4_a?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/leumkzmi0xzvuy7/AAB3V76Y4OSSJQ9nC...
  - spectramax 7y ago
    Super cool! If you want more suggestions, I have hundreds of Design books, my email is on HN profile.
- acct1771 7y ago
  The reasons we'll revert to low bandwidth sites/files won't be amazing, though (decentralized meshnets = freedom).
KON_Air 7y ago
I don't find these things really work as well as a real misaligned offset printer.

reaperducer 7y ago

I'm just not a fan of Material. I've tried to like it, but it just won't stick. I know a lot of people think Material=Professional. But I think Material looks more like a small business using a drag-and-drop home page builder. Yes, that goes for the Android interface, too. I never understood the hatred for skeuomorphism. It's intuitive. It's pretty. It's colorful. It's artistic. A bunch of stacked squares isn't any of those things. Fortunately, I still have a launch day iPhone that I occasionally use for music, and it can't be "upgraded" out of its skeuomorphic splendor.

afiori 7y ago
IMO, when well done, Material design looks like skeuomorphism for movement. That is probably correlated with my taste for minimalist/stylized animation/graphics. Arguably often it appears just low effort, empty and forgettable.

ipsum2 7y ago

It seems like you know a lot about design, so what's wrong with Stripe-styled websites? I'm a big fan of their design. Also, what does "Bumla-lizing" mean? When I Google it, I get this comment.

spectramax 7y ago
I was referring to Bulma CSS framework: https://bulma.io/ https://bulma.io/
alaskamiller 7y ago
He thinks homogenization is bad. You're a big fan of a design that's now copied over and over again, at digital agencies, it's a default client ask. They see x and assume x is expensive and wants x, then thousands of Indian devs and designers spend their man hours to replicate it, therefore we further pollute the internet with the same regurgitation of perceived good taste. It's like saying you like a pop song that broke through, it's okay to like a pop song. But then you have to live through a dearth of similar pop songs over and over again for awhile. He also made a typo, he meant Bulma CSS.
- lessclue 7y ago
  Homogenization is not limited to software UI design. Consumer electronics and appliances, retail fashion etc. are globally homogenized. That's just how the world works.

Zak 7y ago

While the other trends you're mentioning are primarily aesthetic, dark themes have a significant ergonomic motivation in that they allow sufficient contrast at much lower luminance. I've long thought pervasive dark themes were overdue given smartphones greatly increasing the number of users looking at screens in environments not resembling brightly-lit offices. They also save power on OLED as the guidelines and other commenters have mentioned.

spectramax 7y ago
Also, how easy they are on the eyes - most popular IDE themes tend to be dark. My rant was venting about "trends" in aesthetics. When trends emerge due to underlying technical reason (DPI/resolution, power savings, etc.) they add a tremendous value. I remember writing php backend to process 1x and 2x images when Retina screens had just released in 2012. That led to responsive images and many other advancements on the Desktop UI side - all good things.

cam_l 7y ago

I love it when people make authoritative statements about design. Because everyone has an opinion about design, it must mean everyone is expert. Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends, and trends which very much fell or of favour for twenty or thirty years. The fact that they are on trend again does not invalidate that. Nor does the fact that his designs in particular are remembered and copied because he was one of the best of the era. He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.) To suggest that graphic design is solved, is like saying a radio is solved. Technological changes coincide with changes in human understanding, taste, response and feedback. And then to use Dieter Rams as an example, because presumably you like his aesthetic, is to not understand design at all. Or certainly not his practice of it. On the other hand, i totally think someone could start a Rams framework (if it hasn't already been done). An unholy mixture of skeumorphic dials and material backgrounds. It could be a beautiful abomination.

spectramax 7y ago
"Dieter Rams designs were absolutely based on trends" - based on what observation? The trend at the time Mid-Century design with some influence from 30 year old Bauhaus movement. "He was one of the best because he used an approach which was exploratory, multi-disciplined and human focused. (Tellingly, he was educated in interior design and architecture.)" - I agree, and that is my take as well. "To suggest that graphic design is solved, is like saying a radio is solved. Technological changes coincide with changes in human understanding, taste, response and feedback." - I think I regret using the word "solved" (hence the quote marks), I think the correct take on this is that there are no major gaps to fill in International style. Vignelli, Paul Rand, Unimark International, Eliot Noyes, and countless others - they all explored the contours of design but only to realize that principles of International style serve almost every purpose and will continue to do so in future - with new technology, the principles don't change. Its application changes. Even today, design houses such as C&G&H continues to excel whist Pentagram is flopping around in New York trends. Paula Sher is an absolute disaster (See LOC redesign by Pentagram). I don't mind good, well thought out constructive criticism, I would appreciate some more insight into your claims. "I love it when people make authoritative statements about design. Because everyone has an opinion about design, it must mean everyone is expert." is not the tone I'd like to see on HN. I shall also add that my initial comment was rather tongue-in-cheek rant, I should have been more objective and sound. :-)

tlrobinson 7y ago

In other words: get off my lawn. Seriously though, I like the Swiss/International aesthetic, are there any CSS frameworks / design systems / whatever that implement it?

spectramax 7y ago
http://tachyons.io http://tachyons.io comes to mind.
- vector_spaces 7y ago
  http://tachyons.io/docs/themes/skins/ http://tachyons.io/docs/themes/skins/ Love this page in their docs. I constantly refer to it when I need to think about colors even in non-web/technical endeavors

davidivadavid 7y ago

Traditional graphic design cannot be "solved" and will always be ruled by more or less cyclical trends because graphic design is used (among other things) as a differentiating branding element for marketing and communication. And you can't differentiate a product when everyone has the same branding. Someone starts standing out. People start copying them. And then a new trend emerges, ad infinitum. Industrial design is a different question, but nothing is ever "pure" industrial design. The reason you think Rams's designs won't ever be outdated is down to personal taste and what part of the cycle we're in. Apple dominates the design zeitgeist and thus Rams is fashionable. That too will fade, notwithstanding the validity of his design principles.

spectramax 7y ago
Good point about the differentiating factor in branding. I think about design in same way, whether its web design, garden design or industrial design. For example, similar trends have picked up in Cars. RGB mood lighting - everyone is adding it now without fundamentally considering its utilitarian value. Or even if they realize it is "decoration", market forces and consumer choices are obliging car manufacturers to install RGB interior lighting. Same thing with brake light bars that span the entire width of the car. Even 2020 Porsche 911 had to add one!
- rypskar 7y ago
  At least the RGB interior lighting is better than the "lets have all instruments in blue to ruin night-vision" trend
- davidivadavid 7y ago
  Oh, to be sure, there are thoughtless design decisions that are made. Note that that kind of trend chasing to get to feature parity is often just bad product management rather than design per se.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I wish there was more information about design in regimented and disciplined fields such as Aviation where marketing is deprioritized and utilitarianism, pragmatism and functionalism takes precedence. Cockpit design, radar screen layout, nuclear power plant control panels, etc are fascinating areas of design where lives are at stake. All the fluff in consumer design takes a back seat.

_pmf_ 7y ago

They need to keep things moving to keep their employment; there really is not much more to it. As to why Google can not find more pressing things for them to work on, I don't know.

hbosch 7y ago

I have a deep rooted issue with development and developers. In 90’s, ActionScript trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Flash websites were springing up, taking advantage of animations and sound; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole ES6 boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by JavaScript frameworks. Frontend libraries were very popular. Cookie-cut DOM abstraction, one-page apps, launchpad dependencies, etc. Post JavaScript world saw some radical shift in small circles: Elm, Crystal, demos and hacked shenanigans whilst the mainstream development kept on drinking the JavaScript koolaid up until forever. Traditional development has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, BASIC or C for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have FORTRAN on a modern website. For the curious, google some books by Brian W Kernighan - they still appear to be relevant in 2019. That’s timelessness. __ In all seriousness, it's a mistake to say that 1 style -- The International/Swiss Style -- can solve all of design's needs. You are purposely forgetting that design relies heavily on taste. Not the designer's taste, but the customer's taste. When I go shopping for organic shampoo, I have an idea of what "organic shampoo packaging" looks like. It's beige, probably has a plant on it, etc. Tastes change, and they change constantly and organically. Changing tastes are a moving target for designers to hit, or if they're lucky they can arrive there early. Also, it's a sign of "freshness" to update your design from time to time. People expect things to update and "get better", both visually and functionally. Similar to fashion, design does not always have to be rationale and objectively beautiful -- it just has to suit it's customer's tastes.

pjc50 7y ago
I've seen unironic versions of your parody argument posted right here, especially when someone posts an Electron app.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Well, s/BASIC/Lisp/ in that comment, and the critique is spot-on.
spectramax 7y ago
I have to admit, this made me laugh more than I’m willing to admit. It is a mistake to equate software development with graphic design. To compare C with International Style sounds promising on the surface, rings all kinds of bells but your analogy breaks down as follows. Machine code > ASM > C > Java > Python > Django framework > Web apps > Saas. This is a hierarchical abstraction. So comparing C to JavaScript is comparing different abstraction layers. Writing C is not suitable for web apps so much as designing a font from scratch to put a webpage together is not a productive use of your time. International Style is not a lower abstraction or “building” block for design. It is a framework of principles.

Fnoord 7y ago

> Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have Univers on a grunge band poster. For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. A documentary touching that subject is Helvetica [1]. It is about the Helvetica font. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/

Randomswiss 7y ago

I agree and I don't think following Swiss/international design "guidelines" would constraint designers about creativity

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286970

kristianc 7y ago

> Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. This makes about as much sense as saying music was ‘solved’ by Radiohead or Nirvana. Trends change as culture and tastes change. People deride ‘hipsterism’ but without them we would all be drinking lousy beer, eating crappy burgers and drinking low quality coffee. Trends change, challenge what’s gone before and make things nicer.

atoav 7y ago

Beeing a designer is not easy. Other than in programming or e.g. in sound mixing, everybody has (strong) opinions on design. Ever met a boss who came into the room looked at you code and told you to use library x instead of the thing you used the past three weeks? Stuff like this only happens to designers, because everybody believes they can judge design. The client that makes a design in MSWord and wants you to do exactly that still exists — why they hired you when they already have it remains a mystery. On top of that you have so many free templates and drag and drop website designers, as a designer you can’t really afford making good design unless your customer is a multinational company, because customers will always compare you with the cheap online service. This means most designers are basically forced to use something fast, that looks halfway decent by economic reasons. Of course there are always those who really think what they do is great, but I don’t think they are in the majority. That beeing said, I love the interfaces of old professional electronic gear (and lately I have been working in some myself). I don’t think you can transfer that in a good way to the flat screen without adjustments. Let’s not forget the abnominations bad skeuomorphic design produced, every trend will consist of a lot of cheap trash always.

pault 7y ago
I started my career as a designer and this is why I migrated to software engineering. If you're a designer, everyone with a pair of eyeballs thinks they know how to do your job. If you're a developer, everyone thinks you're a genius if your code doesn't crash.
- filoleg 7y ago
  >If you're a developer, everyone thinks you're a genius if your code doesn't crash This hurts on a personal level. While it is a very convenient thing if you are a solo developer, it can easily become a pain on a team, where some engineers care about code quality noticeably less than others and non-developers (e.g., PMs) get involved.
  - atoav 7y ago
    He is probably talking about the perception regular customers get of your profession. You could be a graphic design god, unless you really play the role of such god and demand a god's salery, every incompetent middle manager will believe they have more expertice than you, bike shedding all over the place. This rarely ever happens if you are a developer interacting with similar people (e.g. as a freelancer). They think you are some kind of magician. Similar when you are a good audio engineer or something, they will just let you do your thing. The funny thing is: this perception is completely independent of the quality of your work. They will always have something to say – sometimes even stuff that makes sense, but very often just for the sake of it, with no real reason. Everybody thinks they have a good taste and a great eye and what kind of graphics are needed, while in fact often they have none of the above.

nkozyra 7y ago

I'm missing something - Stripe appears a pretty textbook example of Material Design.

harimau777 7y ago

This may just be me being a grumpy old man, but it seems to me that part of the problem might be that most people with the job title "designer" aren't really designers they are artists. What I mean is: my understanding is that design is supposed to be a rigorous discipline based on principles such as color theory, proportions, psychology/culture, and usability. Instead it seems like the focus is on looking pretty and functionality is an afterthought. To be fair, I think you see the same thing with "software engineers". Many don't have any interest in disciplined engineering or the principles of computer science, they just want to write code.

Kiro 7y ago

So you're not a designer but somehow is an authority on the subject? No, you have opinions. Which are just subjective as any designer's opinions.

anoncake 7y ago

> For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. I disagree, it's quite obvious they were designed in the 50s/60s.

spectramax 7y ago
Are we looking at the same posters? https://i.imgur.com/BJzS7aw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BJzS7aw.jpg No way you can say this is 50’s, can you? If so, what gives it away?
- anoncake 7y ago
  They really look like 60's posters. I just included the 50's because some of the posters are actually from the late 50's. In fact, the left one you linked advertises an event happening on "dienstag, 5. mai 1959". The right one seems to be from 1959 too but I'm not sure.
- hulahoof 7y ago
  The colour palette for me has a bit of a dated feel, although I assume these are scans of the originals and would probably look right at home if freshly printed.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    I think it's the writing too. All-lowercase writing was more common in the 60s and the font[1] is not that common today. [1] https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/castletype/standard/medium/ https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/castletype/standard/medium/ according to Whatthefont
- cphuntington97 7y ago
  It reminds me of Broadway Boogie Woogie which is from the 40s…

gdubs 7y ago

Dark Themes and features like Apple’s Night Shift are accessibility features. People need the option of working at night or in dark rooms (like a film editing bay) without being blasted by bright blue and white light; and they need the text to remain readable without causing eye-strain.

notjustanymike 7y ago

You sound just like a baby boomer complaining about how all music is bad these days. There's no new pattern here: good design, like good music, is remembered while bad design is forgotten. There were repetitive design patterns and lazy emulation ten and twenty years ago, just like there are now, but we don't talk about them much. I personally coded way more table based drop shadows, tickers, and splash screens than I wanted to. Those ideas then, just as now, came from lazy product managers, small budgets, and general mediocrity.

blitmap 7y ago
I found his commentary constructive. I didn't realize we had gone through several periods of "this design is the most popular". I think he's expressing that people hop on bandwagons rather than understanding the concepts or disciplines behind the design. Design taken as seriously as architecture.
- toiletfuneral 7y ago
  No, he’s not expressing that “people jumping on bandwagon” because he literally opens his comment with “I have a problem with designers” specifically. And it’s a strange ignorance to only attribute trendiness to a single discipline.

caprese 7y ago

> google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019 these would make for a kickass site and app designs

dugluak 7y ago

Not everybody gets the luxury to afford a good designer. Frameworks like Bootstrap/Bumla help developers with poor aesthetic sense or simply not having time to deal with design nuances across different browsers a way to deliver better looking applications.