The Grey Period seems to be like Flat Design and Big Fonts: there's an unwelcome general trend at the moment to dumb everything down to the point of being... well, dumb.
Subtle visual effects like gradients and shadows and the use of different colours don't just make a site or UI look pretty, they also give cues about how it works. At the moment, it seems like everything is just another flat, grey rectangle, and we've reached the point where sometimes you literally can't tell whether something on the screen is a block quote, a button, the title of a drop down menu, or possibly even more than one thing arranged in a toolbar...
These new trends can't die fast enough, IMHO. Too many projects are sacrificing both usability and aesthetics just to be fashionable.
designers and users need to speak up about it , that trend is silly , horrible and i'm sick of it. Does it work on tablet ? maybe but it doesnt work at all on desktop, and they did not vanish obviously. The heck you dont even need designers anymore , there is no design at all on these website. flat , no texture , no balance , nothing ...
Subtle visual effects like gradients and shadows and the use of different colours don't just make a site or UI look pretty, they also give cues about how it works. At the moment, it seems like everything is just another flat, grey rectangle, and we've reached the point where sometimes you literally can't tell whether something on the screen is a block quote, a button, the title of a drop down menu, or possibly even more than one thing arranged in a toolbar...
These new trends can't die fast enough, IMHO. Too many projects are sacrificing both usability and aesthetics just to be fashionable.