Just dug up these links too. This comment on the Reddit thread may explain why https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/2uzas7/i_found_out_th...

> Other people’s bodies and other people’s love are not something that can be taken nor even something that can be earned—they can be given freely, by choice, or not.

This

This is really the problem. Many fonts are poorly hinted and not designed with small sizes on a screen in mind.

That I will agree with. I highly doubt that Font Combiner could beat a font manually hinted by a trained fontographer though.

Pretty sure that he was being constructive. Did you look at the code?

"Good artists borrow, great artists steal." ~ Pablo Picasso

All these interfaces are pillaging the Bauhaus! Shame on them! Shame Shame Shame! (-;

http://www.effectiveui.com/blog/2013/04/26/an-historical-per...

In all seriousness though, there isn't any original design. To think that the goal of design is to snatch something from thin air in moments of lighting like brilliance is a gross misconception. Designing is solving problems.

I don't think it is cynical. This is a new trendy style. In 3 years, everyone will be complaining about flat design, hipster mustaches, and wishing we had more gradients and glossy reflections.

Now i'm being cynical. ;)

I would mostly agree with you that flat design is a new style if we limit the context to only web/application GUI's. No one can really disagree that flat design is an already historically established visual aesthetic in the real world.

So this is digital flat design. With digital there are different metaphors to consider, like user interaction, boundaries, display capabilities etc. This is the web adopting some of the best things about established design aesthetics in the real world (minimalism) and integrating them in an entirely new way to incorporate those considerations.

I agree that it is inevitable there will be some new design trend in a few years time (please hopefully not one that involves monstrous glossy buttons and gradients), however this current flat design feels like it is laying the groundwork, especially in how a design should be technically achieved. The flat design is naturally more vector, which makes it inherently more native to web technology (CSS, HTML). This is very different from previous web design trends I can remember which were essentially hacks, initially involving tables, and later divs compiled from static bitmapped assets exported from Photoshop. This I believe is a new chapter in the evolution of design on the web.

-- Edited for clarity.

Justified text is fine in printed material when a certain amount of control can be exercised to make sure that terrible things don't happen.

Browsers are horrible at justifying text.

I agree that lots of type is set too small. Trying to create global rules for design when clearly something like font size needs to be addressed on a case by case basis depending on what font you are using is not a way to solve the issue.

There is nothing anyone is designing that is original.

The direct rip is still bad form.