The Total Art of Flat Design

If the 1990s were an era of post-historical melancholy and the 2000s an era of retromania in which the ghosts of styles from former decades were frantically revived and mobilized, the signature aesthetic of the 2010s was flat design. The term originates in interface design, and specifically Apple’s iOS7 in 2013, which stripped out shadows and other skeuomorphic features to define a more simplified user experience. As Apple chief designer Jony Ive remarked at the time: “There was an incredible liberty in not having to reference the physical world so literally. We were trying to create an environment that was less specific.”