How to Make a Flat Design that Rocks

Very many people in the design industry think that flat design is like a fad that will be present today and gone by tomorrow. Whether or not this assumption is correct, it is imperative for every designer to keep up to date and always be ahead of every trend.

As a professional designer, it is not your duty to refuse or accept trends that you don’t necessarily agree to. Instead, you should have an open mind and consider anything that can make you add more value to you clients and improve your skills as a designer and presently, flat design is one of such things.

When you get to the internet, you will get a plethora of articles and web pages giving versions of illustration on various flat design projects. Whereas they are right, and most of the designs they show are breathtaking, they fail miserably at telling you how to come up with such designs on your own.

They leave you high and dry because they offer you with nothing at all to enhance or improve your skills towards becoming a good flat designer. We, however, break this norm and show you how you can create flat design projects that rock. For the best results, consider the following when working on flat design projects-:

Consider bold color choices

Bright and bold colors are the secret sauce in most flat design projects you will ever encounter. But this is not to say that they are the only colors you can use when working with flat designs. In fact, several flat designs don’t use bold colors, yet they give stellar end products.

Therefore, feel free to use bold color palettes. However, you can use not solid color hues, with different amount of lightness, slightly more than normal saturation levels and you will still end up with successful flat design projects. You can also use solid colors and have great success just as seen in the case of Windows 8.

Typography and Flat Design

The typography used is a great factor of concern when thinking about flat design projects. Typography, as usual, is an enormous subject with endless details and options. But with regards to getting it right with your flat designs, there are fundamental aspects of typography you have to give close attention.

For instance, the use of the traditional serif fonts has proven not to give the very best results with flat designs. You have the option of using Slab-Serif faces like Sanchez or Rockwell. But if you want the most authentic looks for your flat design, then you should consider using clean, modern Sans-serif fonts.

Choose icons that reflect the design theme

Using icons in designing is always important irrespective of what you are working on, whether they are symbols, large logos, or glyphs, icons will always fit. But with flat design projects, when you use icons, then they must create coherence with the overall design theme. You are free to use small sized icons or oversized icons so long as they don’t have any sharp or strong rounded edges and also they don’t have any gradient.

The use of images in flat design

If you have to use images in your flat design, then it is a good idea to have them filtered or stylized. You will realize that most of such designs feature full-width images that stretch across the entire layout. Again for great results, the images you use must never have any borders, so be sure to cut your images directly without creating any borders.

Flat Design and Spaces

Learning how to use spaces correctly is something that many designers still struggle with, and it’s not when doing flat design projects alone. Too much space will leave the design bare while too little space will make it look cluttered.

As a good design practice, you should always add spaces rather than subtract, and this also applies when you are working on flat design projects. For instance, start by including all the elements you need in the design before you start taking away the ones you don’t need so that you remain only with the essential ones.

Avoid the following

Proficiency in flat designing will come with a lot of practice. Besides, it is still considered a fad. Hence, there are no strong industry guidelines on what should or should not be done. Most of it involves trial and error and so far, observing the above factors has always led to great designs.

Even though the concept is still evolving, there are a few things that will certainly ruin your flat design projects. These include using gradients, unless they are subtle, using drop shadows, application of borders on design elements and using traditional serif fonts. Stay away from them and you will fare well with any flat design projects you make.

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