30 ms·

The Flat Sink

260 points by sgdesign 14y ago

zefhous 14y ago
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the Middle East flat kitchen sinks are standard and ubiquitous. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that it's an aesthetic design decision — I bet it's more of a cultural preference. I don't like flat sinks, but I can see how some people do. In Lebanon they generally build large flat sinks right into the countertop with the same marble. They are much larger than most American sectioned sinks and are good for certain things. They use a small squeegee to clean up after everything is done.
- gyardley 14y ago
  Flat (edit: okay, flatish) kitchen sinks, as opposed to bathroom sinks, are ubiquitous in North America too. In the kitchen, the flat sink is useful for dish-stacking.
  - chewxy 14y ago
    kitchen sinks are deeper too, so splashes are minimized. Also, my kitchen sink is actually slightly slanted towards the sink hole.
    - progrock 14y ago
      Don't people just use wash buckets inside their kitchen sinks anyway? It would cost me too much otherwise on a water metre in the UK.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
        Not in the US. I have never seen such a thing.In any case, most people who own homes have dishwashers.
        progrock 14y ago
        I didn't even think about dishwashers. I've only lived in one house with a dishwasher out of the ten that I've lived in. Are they that common place? I have two Belfast sinks in my house.
        HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
        Yes, they are. Inexpensive and trivial to install (replaced the one at my last house: probably less than an hour to get everything done). Newer models will use less water than the average person doing the same amount of dishes.
      - Groxx 14y ago
        The few I've seen have been people with only one sink (so, a single large depression), which makes it easier to wash and rinse. But if it's not large enough, none of them fit, so it's mostly an exercise in futility. And yes, dishwashers are absolutely everywhere. Some don't have them of course, but they're standard fare in a huge number of places, even relatively cheap apartments.
      - kalleboo 14y ago
        This is one thing that differs between countries. In Sweden... You have a sink split in two sections, one that you filled with dishes+water, one for rinsing. My parents yhsed a dishwasher, and I later had a dishwasher as well. In the UK, my sister uses a wash bucket. This is the only place I've seen this. In Greece, dishwasher again. The sink is also split like in Sweden. In Japan, washing dishes in a single large sink under running water. Edits: * The UK also has those braindead hot and cold in separate faucets on each side of the sink. So when you wash your hands, either you're wasting a ton of water, you're using cold water, or you're scalding your hands. Will never understand that. And this is in a NEW apartment! * Also, many brits I've known don't rinse their dishes... they let them dry with the soap on them. Also inexplicable.
      - dredmorbius 14y ago
        Depends on the sink. If you've got a sufficiently large countertop, it's not uncommon to have a steel sink comprised of two basins, one for washing/soaking the other for rinsing. Older construction with porcelain or enameled sinks often have a single basin. Both this and the finish make a removable plastic washtub useful both to protect dishes and allow for rinsing whilst washing. Some "efficiency" apartments may also have smaller sinks for various reasons and only offer a single basin, again, a washtub can be helpful.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
    They're not flat, they slope slightly down to the plughole. It's a design compromise that allows for both dish-stacking and for drainage.
    - 001sky 14y ago
      Yes, they are not <Flat>. I've used a flat kitchen sink, and it is f@cku=ing stupid. A sink you need to wash/squeegee everytime you put something it it to wash? Ha ha. No. Thanks.
    - vacri 14y ago
      They're not spirit-level flat, but they're flat as far as the comparisons in the article are concerned.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Minor point, but he's talking about a bathroom in his parent's house in Paris, not where he lives in Osaka, Japan. Hadn't seen the lebanese style sinks before, but a quick google image search brought up this pic: http://www.lebanon-hotels.com/book/images/accom/Faraya-village-kitchen.jpg http://www.lebanon-hotels.com/book/images/accom/Faraya-villa... . Is that what you mean? Interesting to hear another perspective.
  - zefhous 14y ago
    Thanks, skimmed over that I suppose. Yes, that's exactly it. I find them pretty annoying because water and food debris builds up in the corners and it's hard to get it all down. Could actually be a feature and not a bug, — I've never seen a garbage disposal there, so you don't want all the food going right down the drain.
    - mturmon 14y ago
      Seems more like a result of the flat materials used to make the sink.
    - stan_rogers 14y ago
      Garbage disposals are essentially unknown in Canada (except on US-originated TV shows), and we use essentially the same sinks. (It is possible to purchase and install one, but I have never seen one installed in a home.) Food (at least appreciably large chunks of it) is prevented from going down the drain by the basket strainer that is part of the plug (which isn't completely removed when draining the sink). The strainer/plug is them emptied into the food waste/compost container that is in the kitchen anyway.
  - zem 14y ago
    you see those in india too, especially in older houses and rural areas.
- deelowe 14y ago
  Kitchen sinks are a bit different. They are deeper, you don't shave in them, and they are typically sloped a bit so that they don't get small pools of standing water. These new bathroom sinks are pretty bad. They are really trendy in hotels along with the water found style sinks and the ones that look like a bowl sitting on top of the counter top. Every one is a regression in usability solely for the sake of aesthetics. One day we'll look back on this design trend and laugh. Too bad it will take decades before these poorly designed items are replaced in homes and hotels.
  - sgdesign 14y ago
    Yes! And those bowl-shaped ones don't even have a ledge to put your toothbrush holder on!
    - deelowe 14y ago
      God I hate those. The counter is either at your knees or the bowl is in your face. There's no where to put anything and simple tasks just end up being a mess. What a stupid idea!
  - Gravityloss 14y ago
    Most "design" nowadays is like that. It's actually styling, not design. Real design concerns functionality and usability first.
- DanBC 14y ago
  A traditional kitchen sink style is "The Belfast Sink" - an image search shows these to be big and flat style sinks. Not it's not just in the Middle East.
  - pcrh 14y ago
    In the UK these kinds of sink were/are often used in conjunction with a smaller bowl that went into the sink [1] (less often these days). The sink has multiple functions in addition to washing cutlery, plates, etc. Sometime quite large things are washed in the sink, however when typical dish-washing is being done, a smaller bowl in placed in the sink to economize on hot water as well as to bring about the other advantages that OP claims for a curved sink. [1] http://www.lakeland.co.uk/p21352/Sink-Bowls http://www.lakeland.co.uk/p21352/Sink-Bowls [2] http://quezi.com/12083 http://quezi.com/12083
- idan 14y ago
  Same in Israel, with the caveat that households which keep kosher often have two sinks side-by-side; one for meat and one for dairy.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    In the US I often see kitchens that have two "sinks" with one faucet in the middle. Usually one of the sinks holds a drying rack.
- lobster_johnson 14y ago
  Flat kitchen sinks work mostly because the facuet in kitchens usually swivel, so that you can move the flow of water to flush things out of the corners. In my own apartment I have a directional, tilting head [1] attachment. It lets you point the water stream anywhere within the sink, and it has a secondary mode that turns the stream into a wider shower-style spray. I have a flat sink in my bathroom. It's slighty sloped, but that doesn't help much against gunk collecting in the corners; it's awful precisely because the faucet doesn't swivel, and the faucet is one of those low, short bathroom types, so adding that same attachment would not help much. [1] http://i.imgur.com/XKdED.jpg http://i.imgur.com/XKdED.jpg
hahainternet 14y ago
The most irony I found on this page is where an image annotation berated Google for their flat design, at the same time as having a distracting background image, unexplained bolding of the first letters of 'Google Reader' and generally distracting and disorienting design.
- sgdesign 14y ago
  I would like to officially formulate this new law: "Any blog post criticizing a design will in turn see its own design criticized."
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    - sgdesign 14y ago
      They're not bold, I'm just using "font-variant: small-caps;" (here's how it looks for me: http://cl.ly/LooP http://cl.ly/LooP) And I just like stripes :)
- deelowe 14y ago
  One does not need to be an expert to be critical. I just bought a new coffee table and spend hours selecting one based on the joints, finish, type of wood, price, etc... I know how to pick good furniture. That doesn't mean I know how to build a quality table. Also, the cobbler's kids have no shoes!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dryicerx 14y ago
A best of both worlds would be a flat sink that's angled/sloped towards the wall
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  I've seen those in restaurant lavatories. The disadvantage is that when filling a sink e.g. for shaving, the water pools at a line rather than a point. this is obviously not a problem in a restaurant. See the third illustration "With a flat sink, you need more water to get the same depth" - an angled flat surface would be somewhere between the two in efficiency of water use.
  - randallsquared 14y ago
    I think if I were going to shave this way, I'd use a bowl instead of putting a lot of water into a presumably-not-perfectly-clean sink. You could wash a bowl and put it away after, whereas you'd have to wash the sink immediately before each shave. If the designer of the sink expected using a shaving bowl, the flat bottom would make a lot of sense.
    - vacri 14y ago
      The piping hot water used for shaving is going to kill most wigglies.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
      I've been thinking about why you see these in restaurants, upmarket nightclubs, corporate boardrooms, etc. IMHO it is that: 1) they look impressive 2) They look like you spent money 3) The only task that they're actually used for is washing hands. This is a different set of purposes from home use. Making your home bathroom look like a nightclub bathroom at the expense of usefulness is a particular kind of folly.
- ssmoot 14y ago
  I've seen ones like that. They've generally been stone countertops with custom sinks with low-pressure fixtures that don't have aerators. Very expensive custom work though. The fixtures alone are probably $2K. So yeah, I'll stay with my $50 Moen for awhile yet. :-)
arscan 14y ago
I'm not going to comment on the message as a whole, since this whole flat aesthetic thing has been argued up and down on HN over the last few months. But there was one line that stuck out to me as being a little off: > Get rid of all texture, and you might end up with cold, sterile designs that scare users away. I'm on board with the usability argument, but I don't think that removing gradients and drop shadows necessarily results in designs that "scare users away." If anything, I think that abandoning realism allows you more freedom in making a warm & inviting designs (e.g. some downright unnatural combinations of pastels that would look too busy with those touches of realism).
- masklinn 14y ago
  > I'm on board with the usability argument, but I don't think that removing gradients and drop shadows necessarily results in designs that "scare users away." He didn't talk about gradients or drop shadows, he talked about textures. Wood grain is texture, the paper fibers in most book pages are texture, ... There is such a thing as too much texture, but there is also such a thing as not enough texture: when there's no texture, the work feels dead, like holding a single chord forever.
- no_more_death 14y ago
  I've noticed that most large companies go for a sterile look. Google, Microsoft, etc. I've always thought of Apple design as sterile as well. Getting off track, Apple design is simply not a monolithic, "zen" one-stroke entity. Apple design amalgamates understated hardware with loud, lickable user interfaces. To see my point, consider that Apple hardware is definitely NOT lickable, whereas software generally is. Historically this may be due to the dissonance between Forstall (software design) and Ive (engineering design). (Feel free to shred me as I don't really know anything about Apple design.)
  - gnaffle 14y ago
    The interesting thing is that the new Apple hardware starting with the iMac certainly started out as lickable, and very similar to the original OSX software (with pinstripes and all). Both the software (OSX) and hardware has gradually become more and more clean and "sterile" with time. The exceptions have mainly been certain applications and a few UI widgets / icons.
jimsilverman 14y ago
author seems to be confusing visual styling with hierarchy and information architecture. it's harmless to remove gradients and shadows, but removing context and visual priority is what makes the sink flat.
ebf 14y ago
>Put everything on the same plane, and you make it harder to focus on a specific section of the page. Citation needed. Edit: Since I'm getting downvoted, tell me that https://svbtle.com/ https://svbtle.com/ content isn't on the same plane and still readable? You can have everything on the same plane and with proper use of whitespace and good typography, it can be very readable. Other examples: http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/ https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48 https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48 Hacker News
- tejaswiy 14y ago
  Not quite sure why this is being downvoted .. valid point?
- sgdesign 14y ago
  I didn't say that it was impossible to have good content hierarchy with a flat design, I just said it was harder. And "citation needed" is the Hacker News equivalent of YouTube comments: snarky, doesn't bring anything to the debate, and totally irrelevant.
  - ebf 14y ago
    Is it actually harder though? I don't think so. I think there is some truth to the idea that content over chrome is a good usability principle (obviously to an extent, Win8 takes it a little too far sometimes), and in my opinion, it is easier to learn proper use of whitespace and good typography than how to make textures and less "sterile" designs. My point is you are stating your opinion as if it is a truth, when it isn't. Sure, citation needed is a little snarky, but I disagree that it doesn't bring anything to the debate and is irrelevant. Maybe you could have pointed to usability studies, so there would at least be some data to back up your claim.
    - Retric 14y ago
      Your examples all have the content centered under a single column (which is a LOT of chrome), a flat design would have little to no margins. DF (http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/) even has site index which is another no no from a flat deign perspective. PS: Notice how both of these changes make the sight less user friendly?
njharman 14y ago
Zen and minimalism must vary by the observer... A curve or spheroidal section is zen and minimal (1 stroke, 1 surface) A box with 5 sides, 4 corners, etc is not. There are zen circles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D, few to none zen squares.
- vacri 14y ago
  Only if you're defining minimalism as 'the literal least amount of noticeable features'. The picture in your link is a terrible example of 'minimalism' by that definition - while it describes a circle created in a single stroke, the actual pattern is extremely complex. Then there's also writing and three chops.
crazygringo 14y ago
I stayed with a friend in a then-new building designed by Philippe Starck, in New York. The bathroom sink faucet handles were very cool -- just smooth steel cylinders sticking out, that you rotated. Until I tried turning them with my now-soapy hands... and discovered that they were impossible to turn, because there was nothing to grab onto! His stylish cylinders turned out to be completely useless. Turns out knobby handles exist for a reason.
- eduardordm 14y ago
  Still, someone will eventually call this a feature, because it might force you to dry your hands before turning the knob - keeping it cleaner/dry. Designers will always find a way to justify their crap.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    The correct comeback to that would be to assert that such a demand is unnecessarily environmentally unfriendly since it encourages a usage that wastes more water. Green is very stylish, arguably more stylish than standard aesthetics.
    - greggman 14y ago
      The correct comeback is to dry your hands on the designer's clothing and then use turn the knobs with your now dry hands ;-)
  - JacksonGariety 14y ago
    It actually seems like a correct justification. It's greener, and forces a more logical way to use a product, even if it isn't familiar. That isn't a sin.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    The correct solution: foot pedals, as used in hospitals. Avoids contact-spread infections.
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
chestnut-tree 14y ago
Good points in this article. Another aspect I dislike about many modern bathroom sinks is the position of the tap (faucet). If the sink has a single mixer tap, it's usually placed in the centre of the basin to give a neat symmetrical look. However, if the bathroom sink is fairly small, the tap protrudes forward and you find you can't lower your head to splash your face without accidentally bumping your head against the tap. I prefer mixer taps that sit to the side of the basin or even mixer taps where you can swivel the arm left or right.
bobcattr 14y ago
What font is that, it's great.
- aditgupta 14y ago
  proxima-nova-soft
- wting 14y ago
  Proxima Nova Soft. In the future check out this extension as it allows you to hover over elements to quickly find the font: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgcpjmedljpbcaablpmlmfcogm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgc...
pasbesoin 14y ago
If you have a flat sink, you need an aerator on the spigot. This doesn't solve everything, but it's a big improvement with respect to splashing.
cturner 14y ago
I had an slight-tilt shower floor in Laos. No problems with the way the water hit the surface, but there were some problems with the way that the water was draining to a point two feet away from where the drain was.
acconrad 14y ago
I would say the best practical reason to move over to a flat design is performance increases. It has been shown that CSS properties such as background-image gradients and border-radii are among the worst offenders for decreased front-end performance. With websites approaching 2MB in size it is no surprise to me that flatter design makes for smaller files (less CSS prefixes, less JS repainting) and less browser rendering. This was precisely why our company moved over to a flat design as we've increased the number of users rapidly over the past year.
- mikec3k 14y ago
  You're falling into the trap of thinking everything is HTML. This doesn't apply to native code. There's very little penalty for using rounded rects, drop shadows (which are part of most drawing primitives), and gradients.
cpr 14y ago
He misses the most obvious problem of all, which is that you can't clean easily in the corners of many sharp-edged flat sinks.
jamesmcn 14y ago
The parabolic sinks that started popping up all over Seattle around a decade ago are great. If I owned my own place, I'd rip out all the existing sinks and put in parabolic sinks.
michaelfeathers 14y ago
Doesn't it seem that the move to flat design from skeuomorphism is an exact parallel of the move to modernism from pre-modernism in architecture?
davidwparker 14y ago
I'm not sure about bathroom sinks, but my wife and I hate our non-flat kitchen sink. Sure, I understand that it's curved so that it drains water, but there is such thing as too much curve. In our sink, dishes that should be able to be set down properly often end up tipping over or sliding towards the drain. It's actually a big pain as dishes slide and get in the way. Our next sink will most definitely be a flat (flat-ish, perhaps with a very, very small incline).
ianstallings 14y ago
Flat sinks are for putting utensils in and that should be the end of it. Easy to store dishes, pots, and pans. Curved sinks? Not so much. But for the bathroom? An odd choice but to each his own.
brudgers 14y ago
The analogy doesn't hold water. A flat sink is a flat sink because it is flat. A flat design is a flat design because we call it "a flat design." Skeuomorphism isn't realism - pixels are pixels not leather. A gradient isn't a shadow. The flat "add comment" button below does not cause me confusion. Curving a surface doesn't necessarily make it handle liquid properly. A poorly designed urinal will splatter if hung too low on the wall. And speaking of urinals, rounded corners and drop shadows do not make the image of a button art, unless perhaps one hangs it on the wall.
- Semiapies 14y ago
  Skeuomorphism isn't realism People argue that "skeuomorphism" isn't the right term for slapping photo textures on everything. It might not be, but obviously "realism" is an even worse term. Leather, chrome, or paper background textures resemble nothing "real" about showing weather forecasts, emails, or search results. (That isn't to say good design can't use photo textures, but even many of the better examples tend toward the overblown "realism" of CD-ROM software from twenty years ago.)
- monochromatic 14y ago
  The analogy isn't between "flat" and "flat." It's between "different and worse" and "different and worse."
mblake 14y ago
Ahh, posts like this are like magnets for front-page HN. Mm, maybe I'm just a bit jealous. I should buy a boat. Or start a blog of my own.
brandoncarl 14y ago
My wife and I have encountered these at many hotels over the past few years. The reason is environmental: the sink is supposed to splash if you turn the water too high. It's intended to keep you from wasting water.
- rijoja 14y ago
  if the reason is to avoid unnecessary water consumption, wouldn't it be better to limit the rate of the water? Less water is used and nobody gets wet and annoyed.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    Low flow faucets make you look cheap.
captiva12 14y ago
The issue with flat / minimal design is the lack of contrast. I have had problems when gmail redesigned the interface early this year.
sippndipp 14y ago
If you respect form follows function you can apply fashion to form. Now Apples "realism" seem to look old. In few years it's maybe in again. That's how fashion works.
neya 14y ago
The author goes to conclude that Windows RT is an example of 'Flat Design' and doesn't even justify why. FYI: In my opinion, the author's $5.99 EBook on design is the best example of 'Flat Design' (I bought one). He claims to teach you to design a web app from scratch, but whereas the book is more of a walkthrough for a basic app than a 'how-to' (which is what he claims). Once you purchase his book, you realize it was a 'flat-design' and not a curvy one. The author is an Apple fanboy himself, bashing out the new Windows Metro UI under the guise of a design article. Two years from now, I'd love to meet the author and see him claim the same thing. The author has a blind-folded belief that 'Apple knows what they're doing' or rather the 'Apple can do no wrong' mindset. I guess that's why you never saw any articles on Apple maps on his blog. Coming back to the point, if Apple knows what they're doing, I bet Microsoft knows much better, because they are #2 in the OS arena WORLDWIDE (google for stats). So, this ideology that the Metro UI sucks is just time-limited. It's only a matter of time that people get accustomed to it and they will and MS knows that.
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Wow. It's so interesting to see how our own biases can completely transform the meaning of what we're reading. Where did I bash Windows RT? How am I an Apple fanboy when this article barely mentions Apple, and only to say designers are getting tired of Apple's aesthetic? I'm a little bit sad for you. It seems you see all discourse through an "Apple vs XYZ" filter, and that must be extremely restrictive. Just think of all the information you're missing out on by reducing every single piece of information you come across to a binary dichotomy…
cwilson 14y ago
Solution: Lower the water pressure.
b0rsuk 14y ago
The disadvantages of flat sinks don't end there. They're harder to clean, because dirt tends to stick in the corners.

260 points by sgdesign 14y ago

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the Middle East flat kitchen sinks are standard and ubiquitous. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that it's an aesthetic design decision — I bet it's more of a cultural preference. I don't like flat sinks, but I can see how some people do. In Lebanon they generally build large flat sinks right into the countertop with the same marble. They are much larger than most American sectioned sinks and are good for certain things. They use a small squeegee to clean up after everything is done.

gyardley 14y ago
Flat (edit: okay, flatish) kitchen sinks, as opposed to bathroom sinks, are ubiquitous in North America too. In the kitchen, the flat sink is useful for dish-stacking.
- chewxy 14y ago
  kitchen sinks are deeper too, so splashes are minimized. Also, my kitchen sink is actually slightly slanted towards the sink hole.
  - progrock 14y ago
    Don't people just use wash buckets inside their kitchen sinks anyway? It would cost me too much otherwise on a water metre in the UK.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
      Not in the US. I have never seen such a thing.In any case, most people who own homes have dishwashers.
      - progrock 14y ago
        I didn't even think about dishwashers. I've only lived in one house with a dishwasher out of the ten that I've lived in. Are they that common place? I have two Belfast sinks in my house.
        HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
        Yes, they are. Inexpensive and trivial to install (replaced the one at my last house: probably less than an hour to get everything done). Newer models will use less water than the average person doing the same amount of dishes.
    - Groxx 14y ago
      The few I've seen have been people with only one sink (so, a single large depression), which makes it easier to wash and rinse. But if it's not large enough, none of them fit, so it's mostly an exercise in futility. And yes, dishwashers are absolutely everywhere. Some don't have them of course, but they're standard fare in a huge number of places, even relatively cheap apartments.
    - kalleboo 14y ago
      This is one thing that differs between countries. In Sweden... You have a sink split in two sections, one that you filled with dishes+water, one for rinsing. My parents yhsed a dishwasher, and I later had a dishwasher as well. In the UK, my sister uses a wash bucket. This is the only place I've seen this. In Greece, dishwasher again. The sink is also split like in Sweden. In Japan, washing dishes in a single large sink under running water. Edits: * The UK also has those braindead hot and cold in separate faucets on each side of the sink. So when you wash your hands, either you're wasting a ton of water, you're using cold water, or you're scalding your hands. Will never understand that. And this is in a NEW apartment! * Also, many brits I've known don't rinse their dishes... they let them dry with the soap on them. Also inexplicable.
    - dredmorbius 14y ago
      Depends on the sink. If you've got a sufficiently large countertop, it's not uncommon to have a steel sink comprised of two basins, one for washing/soaking the other for rinsing. Older construction with porcelain or enameled sinks often have a single basin. Both this and the finish make a removable plastic washtub useful both to protect dishes and allow for rinsing whilst washing. Some "efficiency" apartments may also have smaller sinks for various reasons and only offer a single basin, again, a washtub can be helpful.
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  They're not flat, they slope slightly down to the plughole. It's a design compromise that allows for both dish-stacking and for drainage.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    Yes, they are not <Flat>. I've used a flat kitchen sink, and it is f@cku=ing stupid. A sink you need to wash/squeegee everytime you put something it it to wash? Ha ha. No. Thanks.
  - vacri 14y ago
    They're not spirit-level flat, but they're flat as far as the comparisons in the article are concerned.
sudonim 14y ago
Minor point, but he's talking about a bathroom in his parent's house in Paris, not where he lives in Osaka, Japan. Hadn't seen the lebanese style sinks before, but a quick google image search brought up this pic: http://www.lebanon-hotels.com/book/images/accom/Faraya-village-kitchen.jpg http://www.lebanon-hotels.com/book/images/accom/Faraya-villa... . Is that what you mean? Interesting to hear another perspective.
- zefhous 14y ago
  Thanks, skimmed over that I suppose. Yes, that's exactly it. I find them pretty annoying because water and food debris builds up in the corners and it's hard to get it all down. Could actually be a feature and not a bug, — I've never seen a garbage disposal there, so you don't want all the food going right down the drain.
  - mturmon 14y ago
    Seems more like a result of the flat materials used to make the sink.
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    Garbage disposals are essentially unknown in Canada (except on US-originated TV shows), and we use essentially the same sinks. (It is possible to purchase and install one, but I have never seen one installed in a home.) Food (at least appreciably large chunks of it) is prevented from going down the drain by the basket strainer that is part of the plug (which isn't completely removed when draining the sink). The strainer/plug is them emptied into the food waste/compost container that is in the kitchen anyway.
- zem 14y ago
  you see those in india too, especially in older houses and rural areas.
deelowe 14y ago
Kitchen sinks are a bit different. They are deeper, you don't shave in them, and they are typically sloped a bit so that they don't get small pools of standing water. These new bathroom sinks are pretty bad. They are really trendy in hotels along with the water found style sinks and the ones that look like a bowl sitting on top of the counter top. Every one is a regression in usability solely for the sake of aesthetics. One day we'll look back on this design trend and laugh. Too bad it will take decades before these poorly designed items are replaced in homes and hotels.
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Yes! And those bowl-shaped ones don't even have a ledge to put your toothbrush holder on!
  - deelowe 14y ago
    God I hate those. The counter is either at your knees or the bowl is in your face. There's no where to put anything and simple tasks just end up being a mess. What a stupid idea!
- Gravityloss 14y ago
  Most "design" nowadays is like that. It's actually styling, not design. Real design concerns functionality and usability first.
DanBC 14y ago
A traditional kitchen sink style is "The Belfast Sink" - an image search shows these to be big and flat style sinks. Not it's not just in the Middle East.
- pcrh 14y ago
  In the UK these kinds of sink were/are often used in conjunction with a smaller bowl that went into the sink [1] (less often these days). The sink has multiple functions in addition to washing cutlery, plates, etc. Sometime quite large things are washed in the sink, however when typical dish-washing is being done, a smaller bowl in placed in the sink to economize on hot water as well as to bring about the other advantages that OP claims for a curved sink. [1] http://www.lakeland.co.uk/p21352/Sink-Bowls http://www.lakeland.co.uk/p21352/Sink-Bowls [2] http://quezi.com/12083 http://quezi.com/12083
idan 14y ago
Same in Israel, with the caveat that households which keep kosher often have two sinks side-by-side; one for meat and one for dairy.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  In the US I often see kitchens that have two "sinks" with one faucet in the middle. Usually one of the sinks holds a drying rack.
lobster_johnson 14y ago
Flat kitchen sinks work mostly because the facuet in kitchens usually swivel, so that you can move the flow of water to flush things out of the corners. In my own apartment I have a directional, tilting head [1] attachment. It lets you point the water stream anywhere within the sink, and it has a secondary mode that turns the stream into a wider shower-style spray. I have a flat sink in my bathroom. It's slighty sloped, but that doesn't help much against gunk collecting in the corners; it's awful precisely because the faucet doesn't swivel, and the faucet is one of those low, short bathroom types, so adding that same attachment would not help much. [1] http://i.imgur.com/XKdED.jpg http://i.imgur.com/XKdED.jpg

hahainternet 14y ago

The most irony I found on this page is where an image annotation berated Google for their flat design, at the same time as having a distracting background image, unexplained bolding of the first letters of 'Google Reader' and generally distracting and disorienting design.

sgdesign 14y ago
I would like to officially formulate this new law: "Any blog post criticizing a design will in turn see its own design criticized."
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - sgdesign 14y ago
    They're not bold, I'm just using "font-variant: small-caps;" (here's how it looks for me: http://cl.ly/LooP http://cl.ly/LooP) And I just like stripes :)
deelowe 14y ago
One does not need to be an expert to be critical. I just bought a new coffee table and spend hours selecting one based on the joints, finish, type of wood, price, etc... I know how to pick good furniture. That doesn't mean I know how to build a quality table. Also, the cobbler's kids have no shoes!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

dryicerx 14y ago

A best of both worlds would be a flat sink that's angled/sloped towards the wall

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
I've seen those in restaurant lavatories. The disadvantage is that when filling a sink e.g. for shaving, the water pools at a line rather than a point. this is obviously not a problem in a restaurant. See the third illustration "With a flat sink, you need more water to get the same depth" - an angled flat surface would be somewhere between the two in efficiency of water use.
- randallsquared 14y ago
  I think if I were going to shave this way, I'd use a bowl instead of putting a lot of water into a presumably-not-perfectly-clean sink. You could wash a bowl and put it away after, whereas you'd have to wash the sink immediately before each shave. If the designer of the sink expected using a shaving bowl, the flat bottom would make a lot of sense.
  - vacri 14y ago
    The piping hot water used for shaving is going to kill most wigglies.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
    I've been thinking about why you see these in restaurants, upmarket nightclubs, corporate boardrooms, etc. IMHO it is that: 1) they look impressive 2) They look like you spent money 3) The only task that they're actually used for is washing hands. This is a different set of purposes from home use. Making your home bathroom look like a nightclub bathroom at the expense of usefulness is a particular kind of folly.
ssmoot 14y ago
I've seen ones like that. They've generally been stone countertops with custom sinks with low-pressure fixtures that don't have aerators. Very expensive custom work though. The fixtures alone are probably $2K. So yeah, I'll stay with my $50 Moen for awhile yet. :-)

arscan 14y ago

I'm not going to comment on the message as a whole, since this whole flat aesthetic thing has been argued up and down on HN over the last few months. But there was one line that stuck out to me as being a little off: > Get rid of all texture, and you might end up with cold, sterile designs that scare users away. I'm on board with the usability argument, but I don't think that removing gradients and drop shadows necessarily results in designs that "scare users away." If anything, I think that abandoning realism allows you more freedom in making a warm & inviting designs (e.g. some downright unnatural combinations of pastels that would look too busy with those touches of realism).

masklinn 14y ago
> I'm on board with the usability argument, but I don't think that removing gradients and drop shadows necessarily results in designs that "scare users away." He didn't talk about gradients or drop shadows, he talked about textures. Wood grain is texture, the paper fibers in most book pages are texture, ... There is such a thing as too much texture, but there is also such a thing as not enough texture: when there's no texture, the work feels dead, like holding a single chord forever.
no_more_death 14y ago
I've noticed that most large companies go for a sterile look. Google, Microsoft, etc. I've always thought of Apple design as sterile as well. Getting off track, Apple design is simply not a monolithic, "zen" one-stroke entity. Apple design amalgamates understated hardware with loud, lickable user interfaces. To see my point, consider that Apple hardware is definitely NOT lickable, whereas software generally is. Historically this may be due to the dissonance between Forstall (software design) and Ive (engineering design). (Feel free to shred me as I don't really know anything about Apple design.)
- gnaffle 14y ago
  The interesting thing is that the new Apple hardware starting with the iMac certainly started out as lickable, and very similar to the original OSX software (with pinstripes and all). Both the software (OSX) and hardware has gradually become more and more clean and "sterile" with time. The exceptions have mainly been certain applications and a few UI widgets / icons.

jimsilverman 14y ago

author seems to be confusing visual styling with hierarchy and information architecture. it's harmless to remove gradients and shadows, but removing context and visual priority is what makes the sink flat.

ebf 14y ago

>Put everything on the same plane, and you make it harder to focus on a specific section of the page. Citation needed. Edit: Since I'm getting downvoted, tell me that https://svbtle.com/ https://svbtle.com/ content isn't on the same plane and still readable? You can have everything on the same plane and with proper use of whitespace and good typography, it can be very readable. Other examples: http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/ https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48 https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48 Hacker News

tejaswiy 14y ago
Not quite sure why this is being downvoted .. valid point?
sgdesign 14y ago
I didn't say that it was impossible to have good content hierarchy with a flat design, I just said it was harder. And "citation needed" is the Hacker News equivalent of YouTube comments: snarky, doesn't bring anything to the debate, and totally irrelevant.
- ebf 14y ago
  Is it actually harder though? I don't think so. I think there is some truth to the idea that content over chrome is a good usability principle (obviously to an extent, Win8 takes it a little too far sometimes), and in my opinion, it is easier to learn proper use of whitespace and good typography than how to make textures and less "sterile" designs. My point is you are stating your opinion as if it is a truth, when it isn't. Sure, citation needed is a little snarky, but I disagree that it doesn't bring anything to the debate and is irrelevant. Maybe you could have pointed to usability studies, so there would at least be some data to back up your claim.
  - Retric 14y ago
    Your examples all have the content centered under a single column (which is a LOT of chrome), a flat design would have little to no margins. DF (http://daringfireball.net/ http://daringfireball.net/) even has site index which is another no no from a flat deign perspective. PS: Notice how both of these changes make the sight less user friendly?

njharman 14y ago

Zen and minimalism must vary by the observer... A curve or spheroidal section is zen and minimal (1 stroke, 1 surface) A box with 5 sides, 4 corners, etc is not. There are zen circles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D, few to none zen squares.

vacri 14y ago
Only if you're defining minimalism as 'the literal least amount of noticeable features'. The picture in your link is a terrible example of 'minimalism' by that definition - while it describes a circle created in a single stroke, the actual pattern is extremely complex. Then there's also writing and three chops.

crazygringo 14y ago

I stayed with a friend in a then-new building designed by Philippe Starck, in New York. The bathroom sink faucet handles were very cool -- just smooth steel cylinders sticking out, that you rotated. Until I tried turning them with my now-soapy hands... and discovered that they were impossible to turn, because there was nothing to grab onto! His stylish cylinders turned out to be completely useless. Turns out knobby handles exist for a reason.

eduardordm 14y ago
Still, someone will eventually call this a feature, because it might force you to dry your hands before turning the knob - keeping it cleaner/dry. Designers will always find a way to justify their crap.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  The correct comeback to that would be to assert that such a demand is unnecessarily environmentally unfriendly since it encourages a usage that wastes more water. Green is very stylish, arguably more stylish than standard aesthetics.
  - greggman 14y ago
    The correct comeback is to dry your hands on the designer's clothing and then use turn the knobs with your now dry hands ;-)
- JacksonGariety 14y ago
  It actually seems like a correct justification. It's greener, and forces a more logical way to use a product, even if it isn't familiar. That isn't a sin.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  The correct solution: foot pedals, as used in hospitals. Avoids contact-spread infections.
- pretoriusB 14y ago

chestnut-tree 14y ago

Good points in this article. Another aspect I dislike about many modern bathroom sinks is the position of the tap (faucet). If the sink has a single mixer tap, it's usually placed in the centre of the basin to give a neat symmetrical look. However, if the bathroom sink is fairly small, the tap protrudes forward and you find you can't lower your head to splash your face without accidentally bumping your head against the tap. I prefer mixer taps that sit to the side of the basin or even mixer taps where you can swivel the arm left or right.

bobcattr 14y ago

What font is that, it's great.

aditgupta 14y ago
proxima-nova-soft
wting 14y ago
Proxima Nova Soft. In the future check out this extension as it allows you to hover over elements to quickly find the font: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgcpjmedljpbcaablpmlmfcogm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgc...

pasbesoin 14y ago

If you have a flat sink, you need an aerator on the spigot. This doesn't solve everything, but it's a big improvement with respect to splashing.

cturner 14y ago

I had an slight-tilt shower floor in Laos. No problems with the way the water hit the surface, but there were some problems with the way that the water was draining to a point two feet away from where the drain was.

acconrad 14y ago

I would say the best practical reason to move over to a flat design is performance increases. It has been shown that CSS properties such as background-image gradients and border-radii are among the worst offenders for decreased front-end performance. With websites approaching 2MB in size it is no surprise to me that flatter design makes for smaller files (less CSS prefixes, less JS repainting) and less browser rendering. This was precisely why our company moved over to a flat design as we've increased the number of users rapidly over the past year.

mikec3k 14y ago
You're falling into the trap of thinking everything is HTML. This doesn't apply to native code. There's very little penalty for using rounded rects, drop shadows (which are part of most drawing primitives), and gradients.

cpr 14y ago

He misses the most obvious problem of all, which is that you can't clean easily in the corners of many sharp-edged flat sinks.

jamesmcn 14y ago

The parabolic sinks that started popping up all over Seattle around a decade ago are great. If I owned my own place, I'd rip out all the existing sinks and put in parabolic sinks.

michaelfeathers 14y ago

Doesn't it seem that the move to flat design from skeuomorphism is an exact parallel of the move to modernism from pre-modernism in architecture?

davidwparker 14y ago

I'm not sure about bathroom sinks, but my wife and I hate our non-flat kitchen sink. Sure, I understand that it's curved so that it drains water, but there is such thing as too much curve. In our sink, dishes that should be able to be set down properly often end up tipping over or sliding towards the drain. It's actually a big pain as dishes slide and get in the way. Our next sink will most definitely be a flat (flat-ish, perhaps with a very, very small incline).

ianstallings 14y ago

Flat sinks are for putting utensils in and that should be the end of it. Easy to store dishes, pots, and pans. Curved sinks? Not so much. But for the bathroom? An odd choice but to each his own.

brudgers 14y ago

The analogy doesn't hold water. A flat sink is a flat sink because it is flat. A flat design is a flat design because we call it "a flat design." Skeuomorphism isn't realism - pixels are pixels not leather. A gradient isn't a shadow. The flat "add comment" button below does not cause me confusion. Curving a surface doesn't necessarily make it handle liquid properly. A poorly designed urinal will splatter if hung too low on the wall. And speaking of urinals, rounded corners and drop shadows do not make the image of a button art, unless perhaps one hangs it on the wall.

Semiapies 14y ago
Skeuomorphism isn't realism People argue that "skeuomorphism" isn't the right term for slapping photo textures on everything. It might not be, but obviously "realism" is an even worse term. Leather, chrome, or paper background textures resemble nothing "real" about showing weather forecasts, emails, or search results. (That isn't to say good design can't use photo textures, but even many of the better examples tend toward the overblown "realism" of CD-ROM software from twenty years ago.)
monochromatic 14y ago
The analogy isn't between "flat" and "flat." It's between "different and worse" and "different and worse."

mblake 14y ago

Ahh, posts like this are like magnets for front-page HN. Mm, maybe I'm just a bit jealous. I should buy a boat. Or start a blog of my own.

brandoncarl 14y ago

My wife and I have encountered these at many hotels over the past few years. The reason is environmental: the sink is supposed to splash if you turn the water too high. It's intended to keep you from wasting water.

rijoja 14y ago
if the reason is to avoid unnecessary water consumption, wouldn't it be better to limit the rate of the water? Less water is used and nobody gets wet and annoyed.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Low flow faucets make you look cheap.

captiva12 14y ago

The issue with flat / minimal design is the lack of contrast. I have had problems when gmail redesigned the interface early this year.

sippndipp 14y ago

If you respect form follows function you can apply fashion to form. Now Apples "realism" seem to look old. In few years it's maybe in again. That's how fashion works.

neya 14y ago

The author goes to conclude that Windows RT is an example of 'Flat Design' and doesn't even justify why. FYI: In my opinion, the author's $5.99 EBook on design is the best example of 'Flat Design' (I bought one). He claims to teach you to design a web app from scratch, but whereas the book is more of a walkthrough for a basic app than a 'how-to' (which is what he claims). Once you purchase his book, you realize it was a 'flat-design' and not a curvy one. The author is an Apple fanboy himself, bashing out the new Windows Metro UI under the guise of a design article. Two years from now, I'd love to meet the author and see him claim the same thing. The author has a blind-folded belief that 'Apple knows what they're doing' or rather the 'Apple can do no wrong' mindset. I guess that's why you never saw any articles on Apple maps on his blog. Coming back to the point, if Apple knows what they're doing, I bet Microsoft knows much better, because they are #2 in the OS arena WORLDWIDE (google for stats). So, this ideology that the Metro UI sucks is just time-limited. It's only a matter of time that people get accustomed to it and they will and MS knows that.

sgdesign 14y ago
Wow. It's so interesting to see how our own biases can completely transform the meaning of what we're reading. Where did I bash Windows RT? How am I an Apple fanboy when this article barely mentions Apple, and only to say designers are getting tired of Apple's aesthetic? I'm a little bit sad for you. It seems you see all discourse through an "Apple vs XYZ" filter, and that must be extremely restrictive. Just think of all the information you're missing out on by reducing every single piece of information you come across to a binary dichotomy…

cwilson 14y ago

Solution: Lower the water pressure.

b0rsuk 14y ago

The disadvantages of flat sinks don't end there. They're harder to clean, because dirt tends to stick in the corners.