Material Design Guidelines for Dark Mode
I have a deep rooted issue with design and designers.<p>In 90’s, skeuomorphic trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Web 2.0 design elements were springing up, taking advantage of css; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole Material design boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by Bootstrap. Color themes and palettes were very popular. Cookie-cut banners, slideshows, carousels, headers, etc. Post bootstrap world saw some radical shift in small circles: monospaced fonts, brutalism, vintage homage and low-res shenanigans whilst the mainstream design kept on drinking the material koolaid up until 2016.<p>Boom comes in Stripe with sleek blue-purple gradients, smooth animations, Bumla-lizing the entire fucking internet. It is 2019 and every new Saas service looks like Stripe, following trends like a mindless herd. The rest unfortunate (or unskilled to match Stripe standards) are still catching up with single page scrolling websites with full-width banners, stupid jumbotrons and loud obnoxious typography.<p>Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have Univers on a grunge band poster. For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. That’s timelessness (or cynically put, blandness). He exemplified great understanding of contrast, scale and hierarchy in design to convey information. I recently watched Dieter Rams’ documentary and he is just completely disappointed by majority of design in the world. I am not a designer but I feel the same way. Rams’ design will never be “outdated” because his principles of design weren’t based on trends.<p>Let’s go Dark Themes! Also, next year is the death of jumbotrons. Mark my words.