My old boss in Seattle insisted I ditch gradients for solid colors on a client's app icon.

He said gradients were a fad that would date the design in six months. I pushed back hard, thinking it looked flat and boring. That was two years ago, and now every major app icon I see is using bold, solid color blocks. Was he just lucky, or is there a real design principle about avoiding trends? What's a piece of advice you got that seemed wrong but turned out right?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_julia15d ago

Yeah the "avoiding trends" thing is real. My friend's a graphic designer and her mentor told her to stop using those super thin, delicate fonts on everything. She thought it looked classy, but he said it was already over and would look dated fast. She was annoyed but listened. Now she laughs looking at old wedding invites from that time, they all have that same wispy script and it screams 2018.

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patricia_harris6915d ago

It's like how every coffee shop suddenly had the same subway tile and Edison bulbs a few years back.