Big Tech Is Dealing Flat Design a Death Blow
From Airbnb’s new app icons to Apple’s “Liquid Glass” design, skeuomorphism is back and everything in the digital world has dimensionality again.
Illustration: Saratta Chuengsatiansup for Bloomberg
Open Airbnb Inc.’s app today and you’ll find a row of animated, whimsical buttons adorning the top of its new user interface. Tap the cute house icon for home listings and its teeny front door pops open and porch light illuminates. Click the silvery hotel reception bell for the new “Services” page, where users can now book everything from personal chefs to spa treatments, and the image will rattle as if summoning a bellhop. Or hit the hot-air balloon to search for other travel experiences and the icon will buoyantly bounce as a wee burner fires from the wicker passenger basket.
When Airbnb was starting down this new design path, Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky wasn’t sure how Jony Ive would react. Ive, the fabled former design chief of Apple Inc. who has since become an adviser to Airbnb, had famously helped usher in an era of flat UI a decade ago, sanding down pixels to their essence. He replaced once-lifelike textures depicted on the iPhone — wood shelves in iBooks, casino baize in the gaming center, a gleaming lens for the camera app — with simplified icons, elegant typography and a cleaner aesthetic. Ive found beauty in order and efficiency, and pushed to excise unnecessary ornamentation, a minimalism that soon spread across the digital landscape.