4 ms·
"The apps that Google built for Android (Maps in particular) are very clean and elegant but I would hesitate to call them beautiful or extremely polished. Googl
by blub 16y ago
"The apps that Google built for Android (Maps in particular) are very clean and elegant but I would hesitate to call them beautiful or extremely polished. Google's design aesthetic typically eschews gradients, sheen, highlights and shadows in favor of a flatter, cleaner look and feel. "
Your post is very confusing.
At first you seem to imply that good design is tied to the amount of shadows, gradients or highlights and that a "clean, elegant" design is somehow worse.
Yet later you say that Google's apps are well-designed...
Why not use accurate design concepts if you claim that you are a designer? Say exactly what's wrong with the design by pointing out which design rules were broken.
- ThomPete 16y agoDesign is not only about aesthetics. It's as much about how it works. You can have a well designed app that isn't necessarily beautiful. All Google stuff is by definition not beautiful, that doesn't mean it's not well designed.
- blub 16y agoIt depends what you're designing for. If you're designing for more clicks, more ad glances, cross-promoting your services, you can say that Google's stuff is well designed and that it works - because these are the metrics that they use to evaluate their design. When we're talking about "graphic design", beauty automatically flows from good design and Google's products are simply not well designed. And they will not be, because they micro-optimize for what brings more users.
- ThomPete 16y agoI am not sure what you are getting at here. All discussion about design must be understood in context. The context here is the iPhone vs. Android GUI. I responded to the claim that flyosity's comment was somehow contradictory. It's not. It's just a matter of understanding that design in this context isn't only about the beauty.