Both flat and minimalist strategies are among the top web design trends in Singapore. These UX design trends are useful, but only if you can make sure you can use them appropriately. A flat design is more about visual aesthetics while a minimal design is about philosophical approach to website design.
Many web design companies in Singapore are aware of this simple fact, but not all of us have the knack for getting the web design trend right, be it flat or minimal. In this article, you’ll learn what the two design concepts imply and how they impact user experience.
Flat Vs Minimalist Web Design Trends
The web design trend that highlights flat UIs may have menus, CTAs, or other elements scattered all over a webpage. But minimalist web design is intended to make navigation as simple and easy to use as possible. For the sake of this intention, some designers may use some visual elements that don’t look much elegant.
Let’s have some more details on these concepts and find out why they are not exactly the same things from the perspectives of web design.
Flat Web Design
No matter how flat your web design is expected to be, it doesn’t have to be completely void of effects. The aim is to avoid elements that present extremely artificial dimension and depth.
Flat UI Design Principles
Certain characteristics make a flat design distinguishable and separable from a minimalist iteration. Let’s look at the principles of flat design.
- Flat two-dimensional UI style without bevels, drop shadows, embossing, complex forms, gradients, rich textures, and other embellishments
- Crisp elements like frames, boxes, or buttons with square, curvature, or angular shapes and without shadows or feathered edges
- Use of vivid colors
- Great focus on typography (sans serif with weights and variations as the most common type family)
- Strict visual hierarchy with the adherence to principles of geometric approach, grids, and overall visual balance
In Singapore, the acceptance of flat web design is high, but the ongoing web design trend emphasizes the color scheme of a website.
Flat Web Colors
Like everything else in web design and development, choices of colors for a flat UI have also undergone some creative evolution. Nowadays, bright and bold colors are chosen while designing clean and simple interfaces.
Color schemes that have been popular in Singapore include alizarin, amethyst, belize hole, turquoise, pomegranate, pumpkin, silver, midnight blue, emerald, sunflower, carrot, orange, clouds, asbestos, etc.
Flat Design Trend from the Beginning until the Present Day
Early flat UIs used to be quite simple with elements using just one color and standing out from the background. In recent years, we’ve seen changes, but the principles are still the embodiment of lean website design.
The widespread adoption of 3D design has given rise to a new web design trend which we call Isometric Design which provides a stylish yet simplistic flat web design inspiration for many designers.
Minimalism in Web Design
The idea that works behind minimalism in design is the simplification of the user interface by avoiding unnecessary elements or every excess.
Minimalist Web Design Principles
Some of the points that the ‘minimalist’ part of the web design trend includes make it difficult for you to separate it from a flat design. But they are still distinguishable. These are the principles a web design company in Singapore must follow.
- User-friendly interface with concealed (hidden) navigation
- Only three colors or less at once
- Use of empty space in plenty
- Lots of experiments with web fonts
- Absence of details like shadow, textures, or color transitions
- No additional buttons
Minimalist Website Color Schemes
Using bright colors is not wrong but tricky. You can count on vivid backgrounds to get more of users’ attention and gaze but avoid overdoing it. Mix your bright colors up with toned-down hues that are more soothing. Complement the whole thing with black/white typography.
You can also achieve great contrast using a minimal color scheme that includes an appropriate complementary color. After all, the visual impression intended through your design has to be impactful and unique.
Any design that you create should have a less load for your digital system and go beyond just aesthetics. Both of these web design trends are popular in this regard. But minimalist designs are more reliable if you aim at making something that looks beautiful and solves problems at the same time.
Unlike some web design companies in Singapore, we have a thorough understanding of these concepts which allow us to create wonderful websites and UIs imbued with impacts and appeals. Do you feel like giving us a chance to show? Don’t hesitate to let us know.
