And Now "Material Design"????

Oct 15, 2014

In the past, we've had some discussions of flat design and skeuomorphism.

With the announcement today of the new Google phone and tablet, I see they are promoting "Material Design" in the UI.

After reading this article, I'm not sure of the difference between flat design and material design.  Can someone explain it to me?

And, just curious, is the Storyline 2 UI an example of flat design or material design?

6 Replies
Matt M

I have just started with Articulate recently for a client project but I have been a web designer for about 9 years and I think I can shed some light for you.

The biggest thing is that flat design and skeumorphic design are trends/styles of design. Material design is a styleguide so right off the bat it's not apples to apples. The article you linked to accurately points out that material design is more minimalist design than anything. Flat design got it`s name because all the depth and realism was removed to leave flat colours, flat icons, flat everything, but, technically, it could still be cluttered (even though many flat design proponents also believe in minimalist design).

Also consider that material design also folds in animation (and other apspects of design and UX) into its ethos, where flat and skeumorphic design were more about visuals. Material design covers a broader scope of what we consider design. This furthers the argument that material design is not easily compared to the other trends.

As far as storyline 2, it looks like they have simply adopted the windows 8 app styling, which follows the flat trend (less so now with 10 soon approaching).

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